Explore tricky word activities, games and worksheets designed to help pupils recognise and read common tricky words with increasing confidence and fluency. These teacher-made phonics resources support regular revision and repeated practice across Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
You’ll find practical tricky word games, reading activities, matching tasks, worksheets and classroom resources to support word recognition alongside daily phonics teaching.
Explore phonics activities and worksheets for Phase 1 to Phase 5, including blending, segmenting, CVC words, split digraphs and phonics screening practice.
Tricky words are words that cannot always be fully decoded using the phonics knowledge pupils have been taught so far. Pupils need to learn to recognise them quickly and read them accurately in context.
Regular practice with tricky words supports reading fluency, sentence-level comprehension and spelling accuracy across Key Stage 1.
Our tricky word activities are designed for repeated practice in short, effective sessions. Use them to help pupils build automatic recall and apply tricky words confidently in reading and writing.
Try our tricky words finger hopscotch activity for hands-on practice and quick retrieval.
Tricky word games provide engaging repetition without relying on the same worksheet format every time. These resources work well for whole-class teaching, small groups and targeted intervention sessions.
Explore our tricky words hedgehogs activity for a practical way to revisit key words regularly.
Our tricky word worksheets and mats provide focused practice that can be used little and often. They help pupils recognise tricky words quickly and apply them accurately within sentences.
Use our Phase 2-5 tricky word mats and tricky words mat lists for regular classroom reference and revision.
Classroom displays help pupils revisit tricky words throughout the week and support independent reading and writing.
Our tricky words tree display pack provides a ready-to-use KS1 display resource to support ongoing recall.
Use these tricky word activities, games and worksheets alongside your daily phonics teaching to help pupils build fluency, confidence and automatic word recognition across Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
For wider phonics support, explore our phonics resources, including Phase 2 phonics, Phase 3 phonics and Phase 5 phonics resources.
