CVC Words When You Only Have A Minute

I’m really enjoying creating these monthly …when you only have a minute… posts. Student learning doesn’t have to happen only in our longer dedicated teaching blocks, there are plenty of opportunities to squeeze in reinforcement activities at other times – especially if they literally only take a minute. These make great hands-on activities for doing at home, too. For this post I’m focusing on reading CVC words as it’s a skill every child needs and for struggling children it can help to give them extra practice that’s fast and doesn’t put too much pressure on them.

So… what’s a CVC word?

Teaching reading with word families helps kids make connections between how words are written and how they sound. When children can break a word up into its smaller parts it’s easier to find the pattern and reading becomes simpler.

So for this activity each matchbox contains a word family: – at, -en, -ig, -op and -un.

To play

• Kids take a matchbox, either by themselves or in pairs, and sound out the word family on the top of the box.
• They might like to guess what words can be made from that word family before they open the box.
• They open the box and take out a word family strip (there are 3 versions to choose from according to what stage the kids are at).
• They read through the words, re-fold the strip and place it back in the box and they’re done!
• Quick and easy practice!

To prepare

• Find some matchboxes! I bought mine at a large stationery store. My boxes are 5cm x 3.5cm which is 2″ x a bit less than 1.5″ so if yours are bigger you can enlarge the sheets a little when you copy them.
• Print the word family sheets in this free download of Matchbox Words, cutting the rectangles and folding on the dotted lines so each word family will fit into a matchbox.
• Glue each of the word family labels onto a different matchbox. I have provided either colour or black and white.
• You can keep all 3 strips of a word family in a box or just put in the strip that is most appropriate for your little ones.
• If you store them by stacking, you might like to write the ending sound on a side of the matchbox so that it can be read while stacked, particularly if you’ve made quite a few so all the children in a class can each learn from a box at the same time.

To differentiate

Have children working at the level they’re ready for by using only one of the 3 versions provided.

• Letters only: for children who have confidence that they can put the sounds together
• Beginning sound picture: to encourage children to say the first sound (onset) demonstrated by the picture and then add the ending sound (rime) to read the complete word
• Picture prompt: to give confidence to children who are unsure, so they can share in the benefits of participating without feeling embarrassed by not being able to read the word

For effectiveness

• Have children hold their fingers under each letter as they read or sound out the letters

The Free Download

If you did not download the freebie above you can link to the Matchbox Word Families free download here.

I hope you are able to make good use of these Matchbox Word Families activities with your kids and wish you happy teaching and learning.

Need more CVC activities?

If you’re looking for a huge variety of hands-on, interactive CVC and CCVC activities for kids check out this Word Families Bundle.