Word Hunt (Listening)

If your child likes listening to music or watching tv (which child doesn't?), you can turn these sessions into audio versions of word jumbles.

Instead of looking for written words, your child has to use her keen ear to pick out certain words in order to earn points.

 
Objective(s) of activity:
The objective of this activity is to be the first person to spot a certain word in some audio source. This source can be a song, tv/ radio show, or movie. Non-visual sources are preferred as they are less distracting. 
 

Targeted age group:
Children from ages 5 to 12 can take part.
 

Number of participants:
One child is sufficient for this activity.
 

Directions:
First, pick a song or video clip that you can play on your phone or tv. Make sure the audio is clear and that there are no other distractions.

Inform your child that they are now going to play a game where they have to listen carefully for words that fulfill certain criteria in the song.

Since this is a game that is meant to attune your child to the sounds of the English language, I recommend that the criteria that you designate should pertain to various sounds. 

Eg. Words that start with the ‘ch’ sound.
 
You can then play the song and when a word starting with the ‘ch’ sound occurs in the song, the first person to raise their hands up and identify the word gets one point. Be sure to pause the clip during this point.

You can then pick another criteria for the designated word and continue playing the song.
 

Notes for scaling up difficulty:
As with other activities that I have described that leads to familiarity with the sounds of the English language, you can mix up where a particular sound occurs.

Eg. Words that have the ‘ch’ sound at the end of the word.

You can really ramp up the difficulty by asking for words which have two sounds.
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Eg. Words that have the ‘ch’ and the ‘f’ sound.
 

Non-exhaustive list of possible word criteria:
If your child is a more proficient reader, you can use prompts like the following which ask for particular sounds and optionally in particular parts of the word.

      a. Words with the {s/ k/ p/ ch/ etc} sound
      b.  Words with the {s/ k/ p/ ch/ etc} sound in the beginning of the word.
      c. Words with the {s/ k/ p/ ch/ etc} sound at the end of the word.
      d.  Words with the {s/ k/ p/ ch/ etc} sound in the middle of the word.

You can also ask for sequences of sounds.

     e.  Words with the {st/ kr/ pl/ etc} sound in the {beginning/ end/ middle} of the word. 

You can also ask for more than one non-adjacent sound.
     
      f.  Words with the {s/ p/ k} and the {a} sound in the {beginning/ end/ middle}.
      g.  Words with two {s/ p/ k} sounds.  

You can also modify this activity to test the spelling ability of your child by asking for words which include certain letters.

      h.  Words that have the letter ‘e’
      i.  Words that have the letter ‘z’

These types of prompts can teach that many English words seem to have letters that are not pronounced.

Eg. ‘Cake’, ‘Bake’, ‘Cheque’,  
 
Or that the same letter may sound different in different words.
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Eg. ‘Giraffe’, ‘Gate’, ‘Rouge’
 
 
What criteria did you come up with? Did your child like this game? Share in the comments!