Tag: agocards

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AGO Phonics Downloadable Game Boards.

Free, printable board games are available for download. There are several board layouts available. These are turn based strategy games, where players play cards from their hand, and put game chips onto corresponding squares on the game board grid. If you are familiar with the game “sequence”, you are already halfway there.

Generally, the goal is to form straight lines of four or more chips in a row, and to prevent your opponents from doing likewise.

Here is a link to a printable game board game. More comprehensive, illustrated rules are included on the PDF. 

We tried several different layouts. Any is fine really, but if you want to see which board arrangement you like best, more are available by clicking here.

The AGO Halloween Boardgame is a product that works under similar principles that we had printed professionally. Check out our video on how to play that, here:

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Memory Match (Game play method for AGO Phonics)

With two copies of an AGO phonics deck, you can play memory match games. I.e. games where players attempt to find matching pairs of cards by turning over face down cards two at a time.

A little preparation is required to ensure that there are two copies of each card you wish to practice. Obviously, the more cards you play with, the more skill required and the longer the game will take. Somewhere between 3 and 10 pairs is a good amount. You can also add wild cards if you wish (i.e. a change color card matches with any other card) into the mix as well if you wish.

Epic Speed Memory Match


This requires two full decks of cards so that there are pairs of phoneme cards (action cards are put to one side and not used in this game).

Spread them out over a large table, or make either 12 pairs or 18 pairs over two or three tables. Pair up players (or groups of three), and have each group simultaneously playing memory match (i.e. all players are involved at the same time). Players select a card, turn it over, read it, then together try to find its match.

If a player finds a match, they keep those cards in a personal scorepile. If there is no match, cards are returned face down to their original position.

(Note that with larger groups, or younger excitable students, this game can get a bit hectic, and the teacher should be vigilant of cheaters)! A good way to stop cheating is to catch a cheater, and make an example of them, by stopping the game, and making a show of resetting the cheater’s score -i.e. returning all their pairs of cards to the main pile!

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Getting Great Results With AGO Card Games!

As a general rule, the goal when using AGO cards is to maximize BOTH educational value and fun. There is an art to that, no matter what game you play! 

AGO cards are essentially tools for presenting educational targets and information in ways that are motivating and interesting to students. Whoever wins a game is not as important as how engaged students are, and the amount and quality of the practice they get during play. 

Choosing The Right Game:

There are lots of ways to use AGO cards and different methods each have their own strengths, weaknesses and draw focus onto different aspects of the content. Factors such as class size, age, ability, amount of time available, familiarity of target content and the personalities of the players are considerations educators need to bear in mind when setting up to play.

Don’t Make It Too Competitive:

While competitive instincts can be harnessed to create an exciting learning environment, it’s important to first of all ensure everyone has fun. Generally, the younger a child is, the less they can handle losing, so with young students, try to minimise the amount of focus placed on the winning, while offering lots of encouragement for good play and good effort. If you are playing too, it’s generally a good idea to ive your students the satisfaction of beating you, and this can also be used to soften the blow of not winning for other students. 

Using Only The Target Language (when using AGO for language acquisition):

When using AGO cards for language learning, ideally students should only communicate in the target language – in practice, this may just be an aspirational goal at the beginning, but it’s certainly something students should work towards. AGO cards don’t contain translations in other languages on them, but especially with beginners or those learning a new language at home via AGO there may be times when access to a translation would certainly make things easier. In this case, we recommend downloading and printing a translation from the agocards.com website, or otherwise using one of the AGO apps (which have the advantage of modelling pronunciation as well). From 2021, the QnA apps now also offer translations of each card into a number of  languages within the app.

If you’d like more info or ideas on how to get students communicating only in the target language in game, check this article we wrote about the topic: https://www.teachingvillage.org/2014/05/31/english-only-in-english-class/