What are Word Families?
Beginning readers can benefit greatly from learning and implementing word families. Here is what I share regarding phonograms (the fancy word for word families) in my I Can Teach My Child to Read eBook:
“Another strategy that has proven to be helpful for many children is the teaching of phonograms. We often refer to these as “word families” because the onset (beginning sound of the word) can be changed to produce a family of words that all rhyme. This allows children to begin grouping sets of letters within a word to make it more easily recognizable the next time that she sees the same chunk.”
“Once your child recognizes the word “mop”, she’ll then have an advantage to reading all of the other words that have the same rime (top, pop, stop, cop, hop) because only one letter (the onset) is changing.”
Word families can be taught and incorporated in a variety of different word games and activities, which make learning fun and engaging for kindergarten and preschool learners.
Our Favorites:
Word Family Activity: LEGO Buildings
Word Family Game: Fishing
Word Family Activity: Pull Out Words
Word Family Game: Snowball Toss
Word Family Game
Word Family Activity: Playdough with Alphabet Stamps
More Word Family Activities & Games:
Word Family Game: Word Ladders :: No Time for Flashcards
Word Building with Magnets and Tape :: No Time for Flashcards
Spin and Rhyme :: No Time for Flashcards
Word Family Activity: Houses Worksheet :: No Time for Flashcards
Rhyming Jars :: No Time for Flashcards
Word Family Game: Spin a Word Family :: Playdough to Plato
Word Family Game: Tic Tac Toe :: Kids Activities Blog
Word Family Blackout :: This Reading Mama
Word Family Activity: Learn to Read Strips :: Kids Activities Blog
Word Family Playdough Mats :: 1+1+1=1
Roll & Graph Word Families :: 1+1+1=1
DIY Building Words Center :: Apples & ABC’s
The Cat in the Hat Word Family Game :: The Pleasantest Thing
Word Families Flip Chart :: Kids Activities Blog
Word Family Garden :: Playdough to Plato
Word Family Eggs :: Playdough to Plato
Word Families with Bread Ties :: Still Playing School
Paint Chip Word Families :: Life with Moore Babies
Word Family Slam :: Toddler Approved
Apples and Worms Word Family Activity :: J Daniel 4’s Mom
Keurig Cup Word Families :: Kathy Griffin’s Teaching Strategies
McDonalds Fries Word Family Sorting :: First Grade Schoolbox
Stamp & Spell Literacy Play (with laydough, alphabet stamps, and scrabble letters) :: Childhood 101
Click here for more ideas for preschoolers & kindergarteners:
Is Your Child Kindergarten Ready?
33 Ways To Prepare Your Child For Kindergarten
Homeschooling Preschool
How To Teach A Child To Read
Dr. Seuss Preschool Activities
Fun Sight Word Activities For Kids
5 Pre-writing Activities For Preschoolers
Interested in teaching your child to read? Check out our eBook!
There is no doubt that one of the best, most rewarding feelings for teachers is seeing your students grow into little readers. There comes a point where everything seems to “click” for them and their reading takes off! This is something to be excited about and celebrate with them.
Instilling a love of reading in students is a gift that will serve them for the rest of their life. I can’t wait to share some of my favorite word family activities and strategies for teaching students to read and to love it too!
English Created Resources prides itself on providing everything a learner needs to improve the level of English. Our website aims to provide all the required materials for English Language Teachers and Learners to help them master and improve their English, help their pupils master all the required skills.
Such materials are provided for free download to be available always for learners around the world. You can find English ESL worksheets for home learning, online practice, distance learning and English classes.
Our Website helps you to give your child a boost using our free, printable worksheets. You will be able to help your child with his grammar skills with our printable worksheets that focus on using and punctuation, Reading & writing. Such Worksheets are a useful learning tool for kids who are trying to write or want to practice their language skills at home.
Through our website, teachers will be able to help their children improve both their written and spoken English. We provide materials related to all the different skills. Our reading Comprehension Worksheets help students to master reading and writing skills. There are also questions to measure pupils’ understanding and help teachers evaluate their pupils easily.
Our Website helps you to give your child a boost using our free, printable worksheets. You will be able to help your child with his grammar skills with our printable worksheets that focus on using and punctuation, Reading & writing. Such Worksheets are a useful learning tool for kids who are trying to write or want to practice their language skills at home.
Samples From the Worksheet
We also provide coloring worksheets for lower levels to help them learn in an interactive and creative way.
Such worksheets are printable to be used either at class or home.
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Word Family Charts
One of my favorite times of year in kindergarten is when we get to the point of learning word families. Teaching word families is a great way to boost confidence in young readers. I like to use a variety of hands-on activities to teach word families.
Word Families Activities
Teaching word families to young readers reinforces rhyming. It is also an early introduction to phoneme blending. When teaching word families, students need to focus on the beginning sound of a word.
In kindergarten, I like to focus on one-word family each week. Once my students begin to understand the pattern and phoneme manipulation of word families, I move to teach two-word families each week. Each week we do various engaging activities to help guide our focus word family.
Word Family Sorts
Sorts are a great way for students to practice hearing the different word families. I like to use paint stir sticks as a sorting tool. Home improvement stores give the sticks out for free. Just add some velcro and you have a great fine motor sort activity. I put these paint stick sorts at one of our literacy centers each week.
Reading Fluency
Building reading fluency is a goal we have in our classroom. One of our word family activities we do each week is practice reading our word and sentence fluency cards we reach each week.
Mini-Books and More
Throughout the week my students practice their new word family knowledge with mini-books and interactive worksheets.
Word Family Crowns
One of our favorite culminating word family activities we do is make a crown. This is always a big hit! They are easy to make and they can wear it home and read words in our focus word family.
Check out More Word Family Activities Below.
There is no doubt that one of the best, most rewarding feelings for teachers is seeing your students grow into little readers. There comes a point where everything seems to “click” for them and their reading takes off! This is something to be excited about and celebrate with them.
English Created Resources prides itself on providing everything a learner needs to improve the level of English. Our website aims to provide all the required materials for English Language Teachers and Learners to help them master and improve their English, help their pupils master all the required skills.
Such materials are provided for free download to be available always for learners around the world. You can find English ESL worksheets for home learning, online practice, distance learning and English classes.
Our Website helps you to give your child a boost using our free, printable worksheets. You will be able to help your child with his grammar skills with our printable worksheets that focus on using and punctuation, Reading & writing. Such Worksheets are a useful learning tool for kids who are trying to write or want to practice their language skills at home.
Through our website, teachers will be able to help their children improve both their written and spoken English. We provide materials related to all the different skills. Our reading Comprehension Worksheets help students to master reading and writing skills. There are also questions to measure pupils’ understanding and help teachers evaluate their pupils easily.
Our Website helps you to give your child a boost using our free, printable worksheets. You will be able to help your child with his grammar skills with our printable worksheets that focus on using and punctuation, Reading & writing. Such Worksheets are a useful learning tool for kids who are trying to write or want to practice their language skills at home.
Samples From the Worksheet
We also provide coloring worksheets for lower levels to help them learn in an interactive and creative way.
The PDF
Such worksheets are printable to be used either at class or home.
English Teacher and Content Creator
There is no doubt that one of the best, most rewarding feelings for teachers is seeing your students grow into little readers. There comes a point where everything seems to “click” for them and their reading takes off! This is something to be excited about and celebrate with them. Instilling a love of reading in students is a gift that will serve them for the rest of their life. I can’t wait to share some of my favorite word family activities and strategies for teaching students to read and to love it too!
Word Family Words
One of my favorite strategies to help students develop their confidence in reading is through teaching word family words. This strategy is effective because children pick up on the repetition. They also understand the basic sounds, in turn, becoming more confident in their decoding skills.
I love using word family words because the students can focus on decoding the part of the word that changes, instead of decoding every sound. This strategy is also effective because it serves dual purpose, teaching decoding skills and rhyming skills at the same time.
Children have fun with word family words because they rhyme. Whether you use real or nonsense words, your students will enjoy coming up with rhyming words. Here are a few ideas to make teaching word families effective and enjoyable for you and your students!
Word Family Song
A few years ago, I came up with a song to help teach word families. Singing songs is a great way to help children learn and retain information. The rhythm of songs sticks in their head and helps them remember information. The same is true for adults, too. I find myself singing songs in my head to remember certain pieces of information!
Songs are also something that your students can practice at home, in the lunch line, during class time, etc. This word family song brings a lighter feel to the more complicated task of learning to read.
The best way to start with this song is to introduce the idea of word families. Make sure the students understand the concept and practice coming up with word family words. I like to start with the “at” word family. A great way to kick this off is by reading rhyming books that focus on the “at” words.
Your students will have no problem coming up with words for this word family! Additionally, you can have your students practice building these words using magnetic letters or the Magnetic ABC app (one of my favorite, FREE apps for Kindergarten.)
Next, teach them the word family song using the six word family words. Practice makes perfect, so sing this song during calendar time, reading time, while waiting in line, etc. Use this song each week during your word work activities to explore a new word family. Think about ways that you can work reading and word families into other subjects as well, building more connections for your students.
Word Family Writing Activity
There are so many word family activities and centers. The more opportunities kids have to work with words, the more they will understand and retain. Mixing it up also keeps them engaged and is great for all learning styles. This DIY Word Family Can Activity is one of my favorites and is easy to make too! If you want to see how to make this activity, check out this blog post. Using the word family mat and the foam letters, students will build different word family words.
Word Family Reading Passages
The final word family idea I will share with you are these Reading Fluency Passages. The best thing about these passages is that they can be used on Seesaw or Google Classroom as part of your distance learning. Thank goodness!
The Reading Fluency Passages include short vowel and long vowel word families. Each passage focuses on a specific phonics skill to build fluent readers. On each page, your students will practice reading the words in isolation, finding the words in the story, and reading the entire passage for fluency.
This is an excellent mix of both independent and guided work and will make such a big difference when it comes to confidence and motivation in early readers.
In this reading fluency bundle, you will have access to over 140 reading fluency passages. Click the image below to check it out in my shop.
The word family reading passages are also included as a Google Slides format so your students can use them easily during distance learning or in your technology center at school.
Want to Try Them for FREE!?
Sign up below to get 9 free fluency passages sent straight to your inbox!
Free Decodable Passages
Help your students make the leap from decoding words to reading with fluency! These fluency passages are designed to give kids successful reading practice to help students become strong readers!