Count the Phonemes Game Board

Enjoy this FREE Count the Phonemes Game Board with your learners! It’s designed as a fun way to help your learners segment the individual sounds {or phonemes} in words.

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*Scroll towards the END of this post to find the free printable. Click on the teal download button.

What are Phonemes?

A phoneme is an individual sound in a word.

In the word bed, for example, there are three phonemes {or sounds} represented by three letters {or graphemes} as seen below.

1. b=/b/
2. e=/eh/ (short e)
3. d=/d

Sometimes counting phonemes in words can be a little tricker, though.

This is because in some words, two or more letters can represent one sound {or phoneme}.

In the word sheep, the s and h represent one sound: /shhh/. And the ee vowel team represents one sound /eeee/ (long e). So while the word sheep has FIVE LETTERS, it has THREE SOUNDS.

If all this makes your head spin a bit, know that it did for me the first time I learned about this. Maybe my video teaching on The Difference Between Phonemes and Graphemes will help!

Count the Phonemes Board Game

If you want to reinforce counting phonemes or segmenting the phonemes in words with your learners, I have a new printable game that can help! {For 2-4 players}

To Play:

• Learners roll a die and move their marker {or game piece} on the board.
• When they land on a space, they name the picture in the space. {A picture key is included in the download.}
• Then they tell how many phonemes {or sounds} they hear in the word. For example, if learners roll a three, they go to the space with the nest. They segment the sounds in the word: /n/-/e/-/s/-/t/ (4 phonemes).

This free printable comes in blackline only. If you’re a member of The Library, you’ll find TWO different games in color, blackline, and formatted for Google Slides in the “Segmenting Phonemes” section. Be sure to login to access your exclusive resource!

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

I recommend printing the game board on a colored sheet of cardstock and laminating it to make it last longer.

Learners can play multiple times as they won’t land on all the same pictures every single time they play.

Grab the game board below:

Enjoy!
~Becky

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