LIT GAMES

WWW.KO-FI.COM/LITGAMES

UFLI ALIGNED

PHONICS V1.0
GAMING
SYSTEM
OVERVIEW
 www.ko-fi.com/litgames !

ATTENTION PLEASE

You are welcome to distribute my free decks and materials to

all interested parties provided this documentation is in tact, as
it contains vital information for proper implementation. If you
did not download this directly, please visit the following
website for more information on all this awesomeness:

www.ko-fi.com/litgames

If you have donated for a bundle, please note they are

intended for usage by one individual. If you are a teacher or
interventionist you may make as many copies of material as
you need for your students or their families for home practice.
However, I ask that multiple teachers or other personnel at a
school site, tutoring center, or similar, please obtain your own
personal copies. This will help in future developments. I have
kept any associated donation minimum for materials extremely
reasonable for the amount of time involved in their creation,
not to mention the experience and knowledge required to
develop this project. Thank you for this consideration.
www.ko-fi.com/litgames !

HOW TO

DO THIS!
READ MANUALS
Please make sure to read the complete overview manual
as well as the complete manual for any materials you
would like to use prior to implementation. They are short
and not complicated, but key to implementing and using
these games in the easiest and recommended manner.

DECIDE ON GAMES
In order to serve a variety of needs and specific classroom
situations, a lot has been developed here. Please do not feel
overwhelmed by the choices! Decide on a basic game or two
that you may want to implement consistently in your setting
and start there. Our students are still learning, and fidelity to
your core phonics scope and sequence is the true key to
success, this is just an assist.

PRINT, PRACTICE, REPEAT

When you have decided what you want to implement -
print out your chosen materials per suggested guidelines
and adjust the games per what is needed in your setting.
As you move along, new games and specific tweaks can be
approached. Please share your discoveries or feedback on
our social media platforms.
www.ko-fi.com/litgames 00

TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Welcome Message 01

Scope and Sequence Overview 02

Features Overview 03 - 04

Development Details 05

Implementation Suggestions 06

Printing Suggestions 07

Social Media 08
 www.ko-fi.com/litgames 01

WELCOME

"Mr. V"
Education Specialist / Creator

Hello Literacy Community,

Thank you so much for your interest in these materials you have downloaded. I am
indebted to all of the training, researchers, authors, and other programs I have used in my
18+ years within the special education world that have informed this work. Particular
thanks to UFLI for making something so easy to use that I had time to actually work on all
of this!

As an interventionist, I often use games to mix up the amount of repetition my students

need from time to time. After seeing how amazing this manual is, I decided to make my
own. Seeing how amazing the community around this program is, I decided to develop
more options and share. While these games and card decks are primarily aligned with the
UFLI scope and sequence, due to its modular nature, this system can be adapted to most
any structured foundational literacy program covering similar material.

Also inspired by UFLI, I am providing a large amount of free/donation based material, and
keeping any cost extremely minimal compared to similar specialist created material
currently available. I encourage feedback to better meet the needs of those using these
materials by connecting through our social media channels. If you have any feedback, have
caught any error, or want to make some type of game/alteration request please feel free to
get in touch and I'll see what I can do for future versions of this project.

Thanks again, and I sincerely hope you and your students enjoy these games.

Best Wishes,
Frank Bryan Vazquez
Education Specialist
Sonoma County, CA
www.ko-fi.com/litgames 02

OVERVIEW
SCOPE & SEQUENCE
BASIC ALPHABET
1. This deck covers the basic alphabet and associated words with a primary
focus on VC/CVC constructs that occur in lessons 1-34. All manuals here
contain key foundational instructions that carry through to other
bundles.

Blends, and Digraphs

2. This bundle adds words from lessons 1-34 that have various consonant
blend constructs and extends to digraphs covered in lessons 42-53.
More game boards and standalone decks for added review and practice
are also included.

VCe, Longer Words, & Ending Patterns

3. In addition to basic grapheme/word decks - various unique game boards
and play variations are introduced in order to help students start dealing
with longer words and "silent-e".

R control, Vowel Teams, Dipthongs, Silent Letters

4. This key bundle includes considerable game extensions for plenty of
practice to help students master the "vowel valley". At this point, all key
common syllable types have been introduced.

Suffixes, Prefixes, Spelling Changes

5. This bundle helps student apply and work with increasingly complex
patterns and spelling rules to bridge into upper level work.

Low Frequency Spellings, Additional Affixes,etc.

6 With this bundle, the complete sequence will come to a close. Materials
that help extend this work into upper grades is included.
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FEATURES OVERVIEW
GAME DECKS
CORE DECKS
The foundation of this gaming system are the word and
grapheme decks. These decks include:
B&W Grapheme Deck
Color Coded Grapheme Deck
B&W Elkonin Box Word Deck
Color Coded Elkonin Box Word Deck
Basic Word Deck
Hi Frequency Word Deck

NUMBERING SYSTEM
Each card in these decks has been numbered with
the UFLI lesson number in which they appear. This
not only allows for added game play options, but
also assists in rapid alteration and customization
of material for intervention, small group, or at
home practice needs.

MULTIPLE GAME PLAY OPTIONS

Standalone, or in conjunction with the game boards
(discussed below), these decks allow for multiple game
play options and variations pending your classroom or
students needs. Suggested use and guidelines are
provided in each deck and teachers are encouraged to
adapt things as necessary.

GAME PLAY CARDS

Each deck includes the option to add game play cards
such as +1, wild, direction reverse, and others to give
added engagement for students.
www.ko-fi.com/litgames 04

FEATURES OVERVIEW
EXTENSIONS
GAME BOARDS
In each new section of the scope and sequence,
additional unique and novel game boards will be
provided. These helps extend the core decks in various
ways, while keeping familiar pedagogical structures so
core to UFLI in tact. Some titles include Phoneme Racer,
Phonics Ball, Morpheme Machine and more.

TOOLS
This section will provide a growing library of tools for
teaching implementation including graphs for student
goal/score tracking, card holder templates, spinners,
and other optional items per your chosen
implementation.

STANDALONE DECKS
Standalone decks will provide a simple and easy
way to work on key areas of struggle for many
students. These decks will provide more graphic
heavy material and break from the
standardization of the core decks, allowing for
even easier application to other scope and
sequences.

UPDATES
This gaming system is a living process and community.
Based on feedback from teachers and ongoing
research, material will be updated and added to as is
possible. Interested users will be able to subscribe to
lifetime updates for a small one-time fee and be able
to participate in this process with ease.
 www.ko-fi.com/litgames 05

DEVELOPMENT DETAILS
In order to develop the basic grapheme decks, I combed through the UFLI scope and sequence
to make sure every pattern was represented. Some combinations provide unique
complications when presented in this format. For example, the problem of representing
suffixes or other combinations are not always straight forward, nor is there solid research that
settles these decisions for us. For this reason, I have provided a couple options in certain areas
depending on your own personal approach, though have tried to limit this as much as possible
for simplicity.

To develop the basic word decks, I personally identified words aligned to Kearns’ new high
frequency word list as the foundation for inclusion. The standard Dolch list and all Fry words
up to 1000 were also consulted and partially implemented where appropriate. A few non
aligned words were also included for practical reasons. At the higher level of the game play,
key Tier 2/Tier 3 word lists from Lexile Hub were consulted, along with a morphemic analysis
by Lane, H.B.,Gutlohn,L. & Van Dijk, W. (2019). As such, these decks represent a unique and
highly considered set of words for study in and of themselves. Past this, specialty decks
focusing on specific patterns or difficult word study concepts may include any word pertaining
to that pattern for additional practice.

Outside of the above considerations, I also developed these games with the mindset of getting
intensive practice with specific research supported tasks that are in line with the UFLI manual.
For example, whereas many card games on the market include simple word reading - many of
the games in this system rely heavily on phonemic manipulation or are adapted to larger
patterns such as consonant doubling and affixing in the upper stages. Like this, and from my
intervention background, I have been sensitive to giving kids added exposure to things we
know assist in word reading and can provide multiple exposures during game play in rapid
succession.

Most importantly, as an interventionist, I also considered the needs of teachers in being able
to quickly adapt and give students specific tools per their needs. Aspects such as the
numbering system, flexibility of game play and rules, multiple options for decks, and other
features make this a very unique tool you have in your hands. I have also tested these
materials with students and studied approaches to game play in order to inform this work in
terms of playability and engagement. I look forward to users feedback as I hope to be updating
and tweaking things to be ever more useful as time goes on.
 www.ko-fi.com/litgames 06

IMPLEMENTATION
SUGGESTIONS
LOOK RIGHT HERE!

As the creators of the program stress, I would like to be VERY clear that the UFLI
manual and materials contain ALL that is primarily needed to teach kids foundational
reading/spelling. PLEASE make sure you are following their scope and sequence, or
whatever other evidence based program you are using, to the best fidelity possible! If
you feel something is lacking in your instruction look there first to see what you might
be missing or need to alter.

With that said, we know that extensions like this can help in the day to day classroom
for a wide variety of reasons, so I would like to give a few key pointers based on
feedback and conversations with the developers:

1) Be very mindful of when you add anything to instruction. Early or struggling

readers may be easily confused, and these decks are introducing a certain level of
novelty that will require its own cognitive load. Certain tasks may be more appropriate
than others for your specific situation.

2) I would not suggest introducing anything new in the program until after your
students are well grounded in the UFLI routines. There is more than enough there to
work with. As such, these decks were designed to largely be implemented at the end
of major sections of study ( i.e. basic alphabet, digraphs, VCe,etc.) and may serve as
interleaved/spaced practice and fluency building. In the case of intervention, it may
provide novelty for students who need considerable repetitions and to keep them
engaged, or as a teaching tool in the hands trained personnel who can oversee things
properly.

3) In line with the above, I would strongly suggest focusing on a few foundational
games that students can get comfortable with over time. The grapheme and word
decks will have largely consistent rules and game play across the whole scope and
sequence. Standalone decks will have a more simple approach and can be inserted as
needed, or may be all you use. It all depends.

4) Be mindful of your setting. Interventionists or paras in small groups can work with
kids more closely and may be able to do more with these materials, versus a teacher
using this for kids who may be working more independently at a center. Parents at
home may not be the best with grapheme cards and proper sound production, but
may do okay with word level games. These are just a couple considerations.
www.ko-fi.com/litgames 07

PRINTING
SUGGESTIONS
Subscribe to the YouTube
channel for videos on
printing and other
tips/information.

Decide on Implementation
1. Look over these manuals and get a game plan together for what you
want to print.

Decide on Printing Medium

2. You have many choices for how your final product will look. For those on
a budget, these materials can simply be printed on plain paper and cut.
Those looking for more durability may want to laminate certain items or
card stock, which is surprisingly durable.

Print a Sample Sheet

3. PLEASE! Before you print your entire decks in one fell swoop, I would
strongly suggest doing a test run with your specific set up. There are so
many variables with this that this single step is perhaps the most
important. Consider the "shrink to fit" printable area option to possibly
avoid complications across platforms.

Print and Cut Decks

4. Please be mindful of cut lines and making sure words are not
compromised. While care has been taken to precise alignment, due to
shifting in printing on non-commercial machines and my own
questionable graphic design skills, some very slight alterations may
occur.

Organize and Implement

5. Find some way to organize and implement all this for easy access and
use in your classroom. If you have or need ideas feel free to post on our
social media outlets.
www.ko-fi.com/litgames 08

SOCIAL
MEDIA

Ko-Fi
This is the main distribution hub for all future releases and
updates to this work. Ko-fi is a very creator friendly platform and I
cannot say enough good things about it.

Facebook
This is the main community hub. Please give feedback or share
your implementation and other resources here. Goodies, updates,
and other things will be announced here as well.

YouTube
Based on feedback, helpful videos and other things will be
posted here from time to time.

E-mail
You can send a direct message here. I cannot promise a response,
but all will be read and considered. Those who donate for lifetime
updates will also get them through this medium.

Instagram
Eye-candy and other fun things may make their way here...
LET'S GROW
TOGETHER
5% of any donations or proceeds that come into this project
will be donated to the Arbor Day Foundation.

LIT GAMES
2023