All About Word Families with a Freebie!

Happy Friday! I have to say that I am still just loving summer…. 🙂

Word Families are a big part of teaching reading in the primary grades. I personally do a lot of practice with word families with my little friends because they need the nice repetition of words in the same word family. In my classroom, I’ll do a variety of activities with word families including phonemic awareness practice with just changing the beginning sound, creating lists of words in the same word family, word family journals, practice with rhyming, use them in sentences, read books with word family patterns, etc.  I find that struggling readers tend to feel very successful with reading words in the same word family because they are really only changing one sound and they can usually get the pattern pretty quickly!

Teaching students how to read is a process.  Learning to read is also a process. Both can be very difficult processes! As a result, lots of different strategies need to be in place in order to help students become great readers.  I personally make sure that I am not only teaching my little friends how to read individual words but also am making sure they are seeing those same words in context and applying their reading skills to real sentences and books.

Common Core Alignment:

I am very excited to use my Word Families Bundle Pack to learn our word families this year! I have mini posters I’ll be using to introduce each word family which we’ll then use to create a list of words that rhyme with it and fit in that same word family. We’ll then do our Word Family Journal which I have done now for a few years and found it very helpful as a tool for me to see who understands how to make words in the same word family and is great practice for my little friends. This is a great weekly activity which can be done after introducing a new word family. Basically, you say a word in the word family of the day, students say it, write it and then you continue this process for five more words. Then at the end, you say a word and the students go back and color the star next to each word. This provides practice with both writing the words and reading them!

Our Word Families Journal pages and mini posters.

I also have a variety of centers included in this pack which will be very helpful in practicing reading and finding words in the same word family. You can check out this pack here!

Matching word family words (CVC) to their picture.

Finding words in the same word family and reading word family sentences.

Sorting words by word families.

I will also be using this freebie I created to practice fluently reading words in the same word family.  This will help my little friends work on reading basic words quicker and recognizing the patterns of word family words. You can download this freebie here!

I also incorporate writing into our literacy activities every day.  Reading and writing go hand-in-hand and it is so important that students realize that they can apply their ideas learned while reading to their writing! This can be done simply by having a literacy center be a writing center where students are using the focus words of the week to write sentences or a story. For example, the day we learn our new word family of the day, my little friends would be writing a story or sentences in their journal using the words that we made in our list together. Any little practice helps and this gives you an idea of who is able to apply their ideas learned in reading to their writing!

Thanks to TBA for always hosting such a wonderful Friday linky! Freebie Friday is the best!

Have a great day!

Aylin