Word Play

To engage in Word Play, you need to understand what a phoneme is. Watch this video demonstrating phoneme manipulation: Word Play: What is a phoneme?

Phoneme – Grapheme* Word Play

Let’s have some word play fun on the holidays.

Thanksgiving Challenge: Can you think of another word chain from TURKEY to FEAST?  How about FEAST to PIE? Show us your solutions! 

See below for possible solutions for the TURKEY to FEAST chains.

Halloween Challenge: Can you find a path through the Halloween forest? Start with the word at the top and create a chain of words until you end with the word at the bottom. To move from word to word, you can only change one phoneme at a time.  See the Read to Spell image for an example.

Try it with SPOOK to BOO. There are MANY different solutions! Can you discover at least one path? Peek below to see some suggested paths. Let us know if you discover more!

Try SPOOK to GHOST.

How about GHOST to BOO.

And BROOM to WITCH.

HAUNT to HOUSE.

Stay tuned for more game boards (and solutions below)!

Important Terminology:

PHONEME: The itty-bitty speech sounds in words. 

GRAPHEMES: The letter or letter combinations that represent speech sounds (phonemes). 

Example: The word NIGHT has 3 phonemes spelled with the graphemes N – IGH – T .

If you have a suggestion for a Word Play game board, email us with your starting and ending words and at least one solution path. Starting and ending words should be only one-syllable words.

Suggested Path Solutions

Paths for TURKEY to FEAST:
TURKEY>perky>perk>purr>fur>fee>feet>FEAST
TURKEY>murky>marquis>mark>meek>meat (or meet)>feet>FEAST

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Path 1 for SPOOK to BOO:
SPOOK>spoke>soak>soap>soup>sue>BOO

Path 1 for HAUNT to HOUSE: 
HAUNT>hint>mint>mount>mound>mind>mine>mice>mouse>HOUSE 

Path 1 for SPOOK to GHOST:
SPOOK>spoke>poke>poked>post>GHOST

Path 1 for GHOST to BOO:
GHOST>boast>boat>boot>boo

Path 1 for BROOM to WITCH:
BROOM>room>rim>rich>WITCH