Last night I played phonics bingo using CVCs, with my young learners. It worked really well. (You could also play phonics bingo using individual letter sounds.) Bingo works really well with very young learners, too. It might take a little demonstrating, but VYLs can certainly understand and enjoy the game.
What I find works well, is to sit students in a horseshoe formation on the floor, so that you can see all of their cards as you call the letters / sounds / vocabulary. That way you can make sure that they’re understanding how the game is played.
You can find a free bingo card maker here.
Pro-tips
- To save paper, re-use the same bingo game cards with the kids. We used crayons to mark the cards, and after each round they exchanged crayons (you can elicit the color names or have them ask for a crayon/color) so they were using different colors on the same card. Also, for each round they make a different mark on the card. for example, you could have them draw corners of a square, or underline the CVC during one round, circle it in another round, and then cross through the box in another. Alternatively, you can place board game markers/tokens on the bingo card, if you have them.
- Have a student be the teacher, so they can practice saying the words as well as being students who hearing them.
- Make some of the CVCs similar, so they have to distinguish the sounds, for example, include words like HOT and HOP.
- To make things more enjoyable, show them a YouTube video of an actual bingo game where the people get excited when they win, and get them to jump around when they score a Bingo!
- Make sure everyone wins… keep calling CVCs in each round until each child gets Bingo!
