oi,oy diphthong, digraph

The oi/oy letter pattern is another digraph ( sound symbol made of 2 letters) which is also a diphthong (a vowel sound which changes as you say it "oi-ee").

It's a good one to teach straight after the ai/ay pattern as, although it's not as commonly used, it follows a similar pattern.

The "key" words I find useful for learning this letter pattern are boy and toy for /oy/ and boil or join for /oi/.

It's also fun for children to say "Oi!" You can easily make up an "Oi!" game: make some word cards with "Oi!", boy, toy, Roy, Troy, Joy, annoy.... Children can take turns to make up an "Oi!" sentence, e.g. "Oi! Roy! Don't break my toy!" - they need to hold up each card as they say the word. If you like, they can write down their "Oi!" sentence or story.

You can download the "Oi!" game instructions here:

"Oi!" game

Here is a worksheet that you can download for children to use to list oi/oy words:

oi/oy worksheet

ai/ay Bingo game

Continuing the /ay/ sound theme, this week I'm posting a Bingo game with ay/ai words. The game is suitable for use with a small group of 3-5 children (one can be the Caller).

Children always seem to enjoy Bingo (Lotto) games and they are an easy way to encourage children to practise sight vocab, word families etc.

This game will be available for free download this week:

For best results, print onto light card and laminate before cutting out. You will also need some small pieces of card or counters for the players to use for covering the words on their card.

"ay" sound practice

This week, I've written a worksheet to practise /ay/, /ai/ (and also /ey/ as in they). It's in the form of a story: "Sailing Day"; it's a simple story so it also gives early readers practice in reading text.

You can print this story for children to circle or highlight all the 'ay' sounds. It will be available for download until the end of the month.

"Sailing Day" story for ai/ay practice

Letter blend/digraph /ay/

Following on from last week's post about diphthongs, digraphs, letter blends etc., this week I'm posting a game available for download this month.

Whether you call it a diphthong, digraph or letter blend, the /ay/ letter pattern is a very useful one which children will encounter fairly early in their reading and spelling (play, day, Monday, etc.), so I made up a simple board game to highlight this letter pattern.

Stay and Say Board Game 

The printable board game can be downloaded until the end of the month.
There are also printable instructions and word cards to download:

Instructions for Say and Stay reading game.

Say and Stay Word cards

Have a look at my Free-Fun-n-Games site: free-fun-n-games.com/readinggamestoprint for more free printable reading games and fun resources/information, as well as some useful teaching resources that are still available for a donation.