Making and Reading CVC and CVCe Words

How do you teach a cvc word? This was a recent question during my ESGI webinar, "Wacky, Wonderful World of Words". This blog post examines some of the activities we use to do just that! There is a HUGE FREE file at the bottom of this post so be sure and read to the bottom!

Word Families with Magnetic Letters

I love magnetic letters! Every teacher has them, and you can find them really cheap at most dollar type stores. I *might* have a problem, like many of you. I boarder on being a hoarder! So when I see magnetic letters, cheap, I buy them! This gives me quite a collection of different fonts and sizes! The problem is, most kids could care less about them! I decided to make some centers for my magnetic letters that would give the kids some ideas of things they could do in that center. For this idea, the kids select a word family card. This can be any word family, short and long vowel rimes are included. The children find the cards that belong in that word family and place them in the squares. Then, they find the onset for each of the rimes!

Building CVC Words with Magnetic Letters

Here is another magnetic letter idea! The children pick a card that contains a row of pictures. Then, they stretch each word.

Word Ladders with Magnetic Letters

Ever tried doing a word ladder? A teacher gave me a reproducible for making a word ladder. Talk about a disaster! The kids couldn't figure out where to put each letter and which letter was changing. It dawned on me that it would be much easier if the kids could manipulate the letters! Here's how you do a word ladder. The card has a row of pictures. The letters for the first picture are already on the card.  The second row shows a picture of a cap. The kids need to decide which letter needs to change in "cat" to make cap.  On each row, only one letter changes! They love these!
These activities are in these units.

This unit has the cvc words, along with other activities.

This unit has the cvce words, along with other activities.

Onset and Rime Roll a Word Game

Here's how to play this game:

• Make a game board. The first column has the onsets, the second column has the rime.
• Invite the children to roll a dice. Move a cube up the onset (first) column that many space.
• Roll again. Using a second cubes, move the cube up the rime (second) column that many spaces. 
• Invite the children to record the word on the recording page. These might be real or nonsense words. It doesn't matter, they still blend the onset and the rime to create the word!
• To get the FREE long vowel game board, scroll to the bottom of this post!

Spin a Word Game

Here's how to play this game: 

• Make a spinner game board using a brad and a paper clip to create the spinner.
• Invite the children to spin the spinner. 
• Where ever the spinner lands, the children record that onset on the recording page.
• After each onset, the children record the rime on the card. This picture shows the _at game and the _ake game.
• After recording the word, invite the children to draw a picture of their word.
• To get the FREE long vowel spinner game board, scroll to the bottom of this post!

Real and Nonsense Word Sorting

Here's how to play this game. 

• Invite the children to sort the word cards on the "real deal" or the "silly willy" side of the game board. 
• Once they are finished sorting, record the answers on the recording page. 
• To get the FREE long vowel word sort, scroll to the bottom of this post!

When playing this game, here are a few things I keep in mind.

• Children may have words on the silly willy side but they belong on the real deal side. It might be that the word is not in their vocabulary, so they think it isn't a real word.
• Children may have words on the real deal side but they belong on the silly willy side. It might be that a dialect error has occurred. For example, many southerners, pronounce saw, "sol"! That means "sol" could end up on the real deal side. 
• Invite children to work in partners for this activity. Many children do not have inner voice. This makes it very hard for kids to hear themselves saying the word yet they can hear their partner! 

Roll a Word...Cheerleader Style

Here's how to play this game.

• Make two dice, one with onsets and one with rhymes. 
• Make each child a cheerleader word book by stapling a cover and several cheerleader pages together. 
• After rolling the dice, invite the children to write the onset on the first  speech bubble.
• Write the rime on the second speech bubble.
• In the last bubble, write the new word. Repeat for the various pages in the book.
• To get this FREE file, scroll to the bottom of this post.  

SILLY WILLY

Here's how to play this game.
Reproduce the cards, cut apart, and put them in a container.
Put the kids in a circle.
Pass the container around the circle.
Each child draws out a card. When they draw out the card, invite the children to read the nonsense word. Put the word in the middle of the circle.
When a child draws out a "Silly Willy" card, all of the cards go back in the container and the game starts again.
For this FREE file, scroll to the bottom of this post!
If you want the cvc version of these games, you will find them in this unit.