For young children just learning to read, the alphabet is the first phonetic endeavor. Starting with the letter "a," give the children a list of words to write that contain a long "a" sound. Have the children underline the "a" sound in each word on the list. Next, give the children a list that contains words using the short "a" sound. Have the children underline each place where the short letter "a" sound is found. Lastly, give the children a list that contains both long and short letter "a" sounds. Have the children underline the long letter "a" sounds and circle the short letter "a" sounds.
A phonics writing activity for more advanced students can be learning to differentiate between different letters and letter combinations that produce an identical spoken sound. For this activity choose a sound that can be written as several different letters. For instance, a soft "k" sound can be made by the letters "c," "q," "k" and "ch." A long "u" sound can be spelled with "ue," "oo," "ew," "u" or "ough." Set items on the desk that use one of these two sounds and have students organize the items into the groups they belong to. For instance, set pictures or found objects on your desk representing a cat, a queen, a kite and a Christmas Card. Also set on your desk a bottle of glue, a kangaroo, a jewel, a can of tuna fish and a card with the word "through" on it.
Use flash card phonograms. There are 44 basic sounds in the English language, which can be written using single letters or combinations of letters. To learn all of the phonics sounds, flashcards can be very helpful. Each week, lead the children in creating flash card phonograms that represent one phonics sound. Lead the children in an exercise of saying the phonics sound while pointing to each phonogram to reinforce the idea that each letter composition makes the same sound. Have the children write a list of words that use this composition of letters to make the phonetic sound.
Choose a phonetic sound and give the children a paragraph that uses this phonetic sound with different letter combinations. Have the students read through the story and circle each place where the phonetic sound was made. Now ask the children to write their own story using words that make that phonetic sound. Be sure to give the children a list of different letter combinations that make this sound and ask the children to use at least one word in their story per letter combination. Have the children circle each place in their story where the particular phonetic sound was heard.