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 Coloring Activity
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Word Family Worksheets
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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
Understanding what a word family is can be an important pre-reading skill for preschoolers. Here are some great early reading activities that re-use bottle caps for learning fun. Kids Activities Blog hopes you enjoy this fun activity with your child.
Bottle caps are great for so many kids’ crafts and activities, but they’re also great for literacy and math activities, too! We have a huge stash of bottle caps since our kids drink a ton of apple juice, and we make sure to save the bottles and caps for some upcycled fun and learning.
My preschooler loves this bottle cap “game” we play to learn word families.
Materials
- Bottle caps
- Markers
- Optional: round stickers
Early Reading Activities
Step 1
Choose the word families you want to learn.
Tip: For beginners and pre-readers, the easiest word families tend to be “at,” “an,” “eg,” “et,” “it,” “ig,”og,” ot.” You can also try “ub” and “ad,” or whichever ones suit your child’s interest and ability the best.
Step 2
Write the letters and word family endings you want to learn on the top of your bottle cap.
Tip: To make it easier to write on the bottle cap (if you’re not using permanent markers) and to block out anything printed on your bottle cap, place a plain round sticker on the bottle cap surface first.
Step 3
Set out one word family and a selection of letters your child can use to complete a word.
Preschool Activities
- Make this activity easier by offering your child a selection of letters that you know will definitely spell a word.
- Increase the difficulty by giving your child a random selection of letters and let her figure out which combinations spell a word.
- If you have enough bottle caps, you can play a word family matching game: have your child put together or match up words with the same endings (e.g., fat, cat, hat, mat) or pick out the incorrect word family from a group (e.g., fat, cat, log, mat).
- Use pictures of a word (e.g., a picture of a cat) and have your child sound out and then build the word that the picture represents.
- Draw a word on a piece of paper and have your child place the matching bottle cap on top of your handwritten letters.
More Kids Activities
How have you taught your child what a word family is? There are many great early reading activities to help preschoolers enjoy learning to read. Here are a few kids activities that you might want to start with:
- Word Family Tic-Tac-Toe Game
- 10 Early Reading Activities to Make Learning Fun
- Get Your Child on Track for Reading Success
Chrissy shares play & learning activities for toddlers and preschoolers, baking & craft ideas for parents, and her unconventional parenting thoughts at The Outlaw Mom (TM) Blog. You can also find her debating about work-life balance at The Verdict and turning traditional thoughts on their head at Think Inside The Box.