Year 3/4 Phonics – Dots and Dashes Spelling Games

Pupils will revisit and apply their knowledge of year 3 and year 4 spelling patterns when playing ‘Dots and Dashes’, which builds upon and uses their knowledge of phonics learnt in KS1 to aid spelling. These spelling games will develop pupils’ segmenting skills, identifying the phonemes (sounds) in words and choosing the correct graphemes (letters) that represent these.

To play the game, pupils must find words that match the dots and dashes cards. Dots represent sounds that are spelt using only one letter, dashes represent sounds that are spelt with 2 or more letters (eg sc in science, eigh in eight).

How will this resource aid pupils’ spelling?

This spelling game encourages pupils to break down words into their sounds. This is called segmenting. Pupils can then apply their knowledge of spelling patterns to choose the correct letters that are used to make these sounds in the words that they are trying to spell, building upon pupils’ prior phonics and spelling knowledge.

What is included in this spelling game pack?

• dots and dashes cards
• year 3/4 word cards
• blank cards for teachers to add their own examples

National Curriculum English programme of study links

Pupils should be taught to spell words that are often misspelt (English Appendix 1).

This resource is part of the Phonics resources collection.
View more from this collection

• Dots and dashes cards
• Word cards
• Teacher notes
• Answer sheet