Word Families

Why We Need to Teach Word Families:
* It helps with rhyming skills.
* It helps build fluency in reading. If children can identify "chunks" in words, they do not have to stop and blend individual sounds. Thus, they can read more quickly and concentrate more on meaning instead of decoding.
* It helps children spell words when writing.

Ways to Introduce Word Families:
It is best to introduce word chunks in ways that are meaningful to children. Think about why we want children to learn word family chunks: to help them read! Therefore, it just makes sense that we would introduce them to a new word family through literature.

Big books that contain the desired word chunk: Use highlighting tape or pointers to highlight the desired word chunks.

Nursery rhymes: Everyone has access to these. If you do not have posters of rhymes, you can Google "nursery rhymes" and find nursery rhymes all over the Internet! Make sentence strip versions that you can use in pocket charts to highlight the rhyming words with chunks. Click here to see a list of which word families can be found in which nursery rhymes at Enchanted Learning.

Once You Have Introduced a Word Family through Literature:
* Have a brainstorming session -- Review the words from the book/rhyme that used the chunk you are studying. Have some kind of chart available (I use these chunk charts from Carson Dellosa) to write down these words. Go over the chunk again and ask if anyone can give you another word that rhymes. I accept anything that rhymes, but I only record real words on the chart. I write the onset in one color and the rime (chunk) in another to highlight the chunk. Once we have brainstormed our list, it is posted on our Chunk Wall for use during writing time. I like the Carson Dellosa word family posters because they are shaped like a word in the word family. For example, the "-at" family is a cat; the "-ake" family is a cake. The visual helps the children find the chunk they are seeking during writing time.

Play movement games involving the new chunk: We play the "Word Family Hop." The children stand in a circle in our meeting area (with about 2 feet between children).  I tell the children, "We are going to practice our new word family chunk. I will say a word. If it rhymes with (give an example from the word family), I want you to hop once in this direction to make the circle move. If it does NOT rhyme with (word), you stay frozen." This is a popular game, and to get the most out of it I say more words that rhyme with the word family than I do words that don't. (Whole-group or small-group)

Another game to play that involves student movement is "Kid Chunks." To play this game, you need two children at a time to come to the front of the group. One child holds an onset (beginning sound) card, and the other holds the rime (chunk) card. The two children stand with a little space between them. The teacher points to the onset card, and the class says that sound. Then she points to the rime card, and the class says that chunk. Next, as the class blends the onset and rime together, the child holding the rime card hops sideways to be next to the child holding the onset card to connect the word. Click here to download my onset and rime big cards. (Whole-group or small-group)

Build word family words with magnetic letters:
You can use a duplicate set of your shaped word family cards (like the Carson Dellosa ones), or you can make your own build-a-word mats using clipart or no clipart. Below, I have links to some of my build-a-word-family mats. If you use my mats, you play the game this way: On the mats, the child first pulls the two or three magnetic sounds that make up the word chunk. For "-ack," he would pull a, c, and k and place them over the letters on the mat. Then he chooses other magnetic sounds and puts them in front of the chunk to see if it makes a real word. If it makes a real word, he removes the onset (beginning sound) and copies that letter on the line to record the word on his page. (Small-group)

Short /a/ word family builders

Short /i/ word family builders

Short /o/ word family builders

Short /u/ word family builders

Word Family Sliders: These are from Lakeshore Learning. I sometimes use one of these two recording sheets to go along with this activity or when students build word families with magnetic letters. I change the headings and/or word families as needed for the assignments.  Recording sheet #1   Recording sheet #2