5 best writing games to help develop literacy

Writing and literacy can involve the same tedious activities that can lead to children losing interest. Mix writing up and help to develop literacy with these 5 writing games and create an interest in writing. Your pupils will love these games and improve their literacy skills and writing without realising! Tailor these games to your class, making sure that words used are ones they will understand or easily be able to know their meaning.

Writing letters and debates

Writing letters and debates may seem like one of the less fun writing games for pupils but it is possible to make this enjoyable and more like a game. Create different scenarios to write a letter or debate and number them. Get children to roll a dice and the number it lands on they have to choose that scenario. They will then write their letter or debate using what they know and their imaginations to make their writing compelling.

You can even create scenarios for each part of the letter or debate where children will continue to roll the dice for each part. This can make the game trickier for them as they will have to piece the different information together, so it makes sense. Instead of dice you could use our writing prompts cubes for this.

Hit it

Display words on the floor or wall and divide your class into teams. Each team can have a small soft ball to hit words that are called out by you. Whoever hits the correct word first wins a point. Once a word is hit, every pupil has to write that word correctly. You can use writing boards for this so you can see everyone’s words.

To make this game harder, you can shout out multiple words to form a sentence. Children will then hit those words with their ball and write down the sentence in the correct order. Instead of wiping the sentence away, encourage children to keep them and create a short story from multiple short sentences.

Create a scavenger hunt or outdoor trail

Create a list of items and task your pupils to find them in the classroom. Once found they should write them down in the order they found them. Make sure to set a timer to make the game more challenging and enjoyable for children. Afterwards, tell them to create sentences for each object they found. Task them with rearranging the sentences they wrote to create a story to improve their literacy skills.

Why not take this game outdoors and create an outdoor trail? Get pupils to look for natural objects such as twigs, leaves, flowers etc. Set the game up the same and time children to find them.

Drawing words

This game doesn’t necessarily involve children to write but it creates a link to words for children and is a fun way to develop their literacy. Create a generator of random words and let each pupil spin it. Whatever word they land on pupils have to draw it out. Allow them to draw in any style they please and let their imaginations run wild with each picture.

To make this game more enjoyable, why not pair it with the classic game of Pictionary? Pupils can draw out different words and scenarios in this game under a timer. You could also pair Scrabble with this. Each word children make when playing, task them to draw them out. This gives children a visual connection to words to further understand the meaning.

Word ping pong

Set out some disposable cups onto a table and write various words on small pieces of paper. Stick each paper to the bottom of the cup. Children can be split into two teams and bounce a ping pong ball onto the table to try get it in one of the cups. When they get one in tell them to take the word from the bottom and write it down in their team notebook. Whoever collects the most words wins. Once done challenge your class to make sentences using those words together. They can work in their group to use their imagination and create various sentences for each word to understand different contexts.

Try these 5 best writing games to help develop literacy with your pupils and allow them to enjoy writing. Challenge children to play around with words to make sentences mean something different and get them to think outside the box. Allow them to be as creative as possible and don’t strive for perfection, as long as they understand and learn something from each game.

Want some advice on how to encourage children to write and develop their skills? Check out our writing tips blog for fun ways that children can develop writing and literacy skills.