Word Families

    Skilled readers recognize patterns in words rather than sound words out, letter by letter.  Word families, also known as phonograms, rimes, or chunks, are letter patterns that are more stable than individual vowel sounds.  If a reader knows the word, cat, for example, it's likely that he/she will be able to read other -at words, such as sat and hat.  Recognizing word families helps students build large reading vocabularies. 

1.  An Envelope of Words:   To encourage your child to practice letter patterns, write the words on paper and cut each letter apart.  Place the letters in an envelope, and label it with the word family.  Then ask your child to build words.  Your child could also write the words he/she makes on paper, chalkboard, markerboard, etc.  This activity can be extended to making sentences and cutting them apart to rebuild.

2.  Scrabble Pieces:   Use letter tiles from your Scrabble game to build words.  When your child makes a word,  math facts could also be practiced.

3.  Nursury Rhymes/Dr. Seuss books:  Place small sticky notes over words in the story that contain word chunks.  Let your child play a guessing game and guess what spelling patterns/words belong it the space.  Lift the stick note to check your answer.

4.  Magnetic Letters:  Invite your child to use magnetic letters to build words on the refrigerator.

5.  Texture Writing:    Ask to child to make words by using a variety of textures:  Play-Doh, shaving cream, sand, markers, chalk, crayons, finger paint, waterpaint, etc.

Any games that are used to practice these words such as:  BINGO, Word Search, etc. would be a great way to practice.  Most importantly, READ!  Share books with your child every day.  After reading a story for enjoyment, challenge your child to search in the text for word families he or she knows.

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