Matching pictures to word families

This year, MBug {4 years old} and I are moving slowly through Reading the Alphabet. Some new family dynamics have made it difficult for me to go any faster and that’s okay. We just work it in when we can. She still loves to “do school” and had so much fun with this word family matching game that we played with lesson 14’s IG word family printables. And it’s oh, so simple!!

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If you’ve spent any time on Pinterest, you’ve probably seen the term word family. Basically, a word family is a group of words that share a rime {and ending part of the word that is spelled the same}. For example, dog, frog, and log are a part of the word family OG while night, light, and bright are a part of the word family IGHT.

Many beginning readers benefit from learning to read by word families. That’s why the first level of our Short Vowel Word Study App starts with simple word families.

Word Family Resources

Just this past week, we played a word family matching game with lesson 14’s IG family cards from Reading the Alphabet. {The cards pictured are from our bundle pack.} You can also find more word family word/picture cards in lesson 7- AT family, lesson 20- OT family, lesson 26- ET family, and lesson 31- UG family as well as our Set 1 BOB Books printables.

Before we played the game, we sorted and matched the word family words and picture cards a couple of times in our pocket chart. We did this the day before we played the matching game and again right before we played the word family matching game.

To do this, I placed all the words on the left side of the pocket chart. The first time, we read them like this d-ig, dig and then she found the picture to match. The second time, I provided less support to see if she could read the words.

Word Family Matching Game

{I always print the cards onto cardstock so that they are sturdy and so you can’t see through them from the back. I don’t always laminate them, but if you have multiple children who will handle them, I highly suggest it.}

Playing this word family matching game is SUPER simple and provides meaningful and multiple exposure to reading words by word family, which can help kids many kids blend sounds together better. Here’s how:

1. Separate your cards into onsets {blue letters}, rimes {IG chunk}, and IG pictures. Lay them all face down into three different groups on the table top or floor area. In the image above, you can see what’s under each group, but cards should be face down for the game.

2. Turn over one onset card {first letter} and say the sound /d/.

3. Turn over one rime card {IG} and say IG. Yes, I know they’re all the same, but you’d be surprised how many kids don’t realize this! Now, put the onset /d/ and IG together to say DIG.

4. Lastly, turn over an IG picture and see if it matches the word you just read. If it’s not, you turn all the cards back over and it’s the next person’s turn.

But if you get a match, you get to keep them. Happy girl!

Let me just say that I’m not one of those moms who feels I need to let my kids win every time I play a game with them. But with this game, the less I match, the more she has to read. Hehe. Plus, she thinks she’s really beating me. So, it’s a win-win.

More Word Family Fun

• Short Vowel Word Study App – Level 1 has several games kids can play with word families
• Reading the Alphabet– Lesson 7, 14, 20, 26, & 31
• Word Family Blackout
• Flip a Word {short vowel word families}
• BOB Books Rhyming Words Printables {with word family activities}

• The Measured Mom has two FANTASTIC short vowel word family products: Word Family Mats and Word Family Houses.

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~Becky

Home > Family Match-Up

Get your child reading with these CVC worksheets and word family activities.  Designed to support phonics in kindergarten, these cvc worksheets, cvc word games, cvc book, and assessments include everything you need bridge your instruction from letter sounds to phoneme segmentation and building fluency.

What are CVC Word Families?

CVC word families, also known as phonograms, are groups of words that share the same rime, but have different onsets.  An onset is the initial sound of a word, and a rime is the vowel and consonant(s) that follow.  The et word family, for example, would consist of words such as wet, get, set, bet, jet, etc.

After learning to identify and produce letter sounds, exposure to cvc worksheets and cvc activities will help build phonological awareness and decoding skills – both very important for reading fluency in kindergarten and first grade.

When are CVC Word Families Taught?

CVC word families are introduced after mastery of the alphabet letters and sounds.  As a kindergarten teacher, I focused heavily on cvc words, phoneme segmentation, and word families during second half of the school year.  More intense word family instruction is carried throughout the first grade.  I created CVC word family printable resources, and CVC word games,  as a supplemental to our weekly word family instruction and assessments.

Free CVC Worksheets and Activities

When you choose to teach your little learners how to blend and read, my CVC Bundle has worksheets and activities broken down into individual word families. I then chose five focus words for each packet to increase repetition.  Repetition helps to improve speed, increases confidence, and strengthens the learning process.

Grab your FREE CVC packet today, and check it out for yourself!

The CVC Word Family packets, include CVC worksheets, a decodable book, word cards, sound boxes, cvc games, and assessments.  Each CVC printable packet comes with everything you need to integrate onsets and rimes.

CVC Decodable Books

The cvc decodable books are excellent for guided reading, mini-lessons, and shared reading lessons.  The text is large, which helps with concepts of print, such as tracking print and pointing to the words.  The pictures are simple and clear of clutter, to help the readers apply reading strategies, such as using the pictures when stuck on a word.

Day 1: Do a book walk, and build vocabulary when talking about the pictures.  Then, echo read with the kiddos.

At the end of the week, I allowed my students to take the books home to read to their family, or keep them in their book boxes in the classroom. I change out my book boxes from year to year.  I have used both magazine holders and ziploc resealable bags as storage for all of their decodable books.  Both, were great storage solutions for the classroom.

CVC Word Cards

The word family picture cards were displayed on  my ELA focus wall at the start of each week.  You can cut each word card out and display them in a pocket chart, or simply laminate the two sheets together to display as an anchor chart.  I liked the anchor chart display, because I’d simply hole punch each week’s display and keep them all on one binder ring.  That way, I didn’t have to search through files each week – I’d just simply turn to the next word cvc word family 🙂

Word Family House

After introducing the word cards, the kids write the words on the My ___ Word Family House cvc worksheet.  I would send this home on Mondays.  This way, they could show their family what the words are for the week – just in case the parents missed the newsletter.

Write and Illustrate

The “Write and Illustrate” cvc worksheet is good for shared writing, mini-lessons, centers, and homework.  Students pick any one of the 5 focus words, write it in the box at the top, then write a sentence using that word. When done, they draw a picture to match the sentence.

cvc worksheets and activities for kindergarten and first grade

CVC Sound Boxes

The leveled “Sound Boxes” cvc worksheets are excellent for phoneme segmentation. Students say the word, tap the sound boxes to segment the word, then write the word.  They can also use letter stamps, or rainbow write the words.  You can watch a video on how to use sound boxes, here.

CVC Word Family Match-up

Word Family Match-up goes beyond the 5 focus cvc words for the week.  This cvc worksheet builds visual discrimination, phoneme segmentation, and accuracy.  Students read the cvc words, then draw a line to the word on the right.

CVC Assessments

Finally, at the end of the week, I assessed each student individually on the 5 Word Family focus words.  You could administer the cvc reading assessment as a whole class, but I prefer one-on-one assessments to assure accuracy, and to be able to watch/listen to their thoughts (mumbles) as they practiced phoneme segmentation and blending.  For the cvc writing assessment, the teacher says the word for each picture, then the student writes the word independently.  There is a section for notes at the bottom – great to communicate/document and concerns or patterns observed.

CVC Activities for the Year

Take the stress out of planning your CVC activities from week to week with my CVC Bundle.  This 425 page printable packet has everything you need to teach and assess 17 CVC word families, including _ad, _ag, _at, _ap, _an, _ig, _ill, _ip, _in, _it, _og, _op, _ot, _et, _en, _un, and _ug. Yes, friends, every resource mentioned in this post is included for each word family.  And, best of all, for under $60, you won’t have to plan out your cvc activities and assessments…simply find your word family and print!  You’ll have what you need year after year!