ESL Letter Cards

My favourite teaching resource is letter cards. They are cheap and easy to make. They’re versatile and the kids love them.

What you Need:

• A list of words
• Coloured card (4 or 6 different colours depending on how many sets you’d like to make)
• Black marker pen
• You can also do it with white card and different coloured marker pens
• Scissors

How to Make the Cards:

• Start by creating a list of the words you want the students to be able to spell.
• Check how many letters you need for each word (for example: you need 3 Ps and 2 Es to spell “pineapple”).
• I always make sure that I have at least one of every letter (e.g. X and Z) even if I have no words with those letters.
• Cut the card into appropriate sized pieces. About a quarter of an A4 sheet is probably about right.
• Write the letters on the cards (you can do a mix of capital and lower-case if you like, though I usually just do capital).
• Ensure that you have exactly the same letters for each set that you are making.
• Keep some extra card in case you want to add extra letters (“nineteen” needs 3 Ns).

Some of my favourite ways to use the Cards:

Alphabet

• You can use one set and give them out, one to each student.
• Now ask the students to put themselves into alphabetical order.
• This works well for students in early primary school.

Grade 5 students in Sri Lanka spelling

Spelling

• The main activity I use them for is spelling.
• I divide the students into groups. Each group gets a set of cards.
• I say a word (that’s on the list) and the first team to spell that word with their cards gets a point.
• More interactive and more fun than a normal spelling bee.

Anagrams

• You can also use the cards for anagrams.
• Just ask the students to see how many words they can make with the cards or with a subset of the cards.