In my limited experience with teaching reading I’ve seen teaching word families as a great way to get more bang for my teaching buck.
Kids can learn the middle and ending sounds, add it to letters they already know and they can learn chunks of words as opposed to one word at a time.
So far, my two school-aged children love flashcards. For a long time I had a negative view of flashcards, but I’m starting to embrace them when I can to help my little ones learn. (Checkout our flashcard station.)
Today I have free printables for several “letter a” word families. Just click on the word family you want.
I simply printed the cards on colored cardstock, laminated them at home, punched holes in the corners and used 1 inch book rings to keep each set together. (You can see them in this post about our flashcard station.)
My two older kids (7 and 6) usually pick 2 sets a day to read aloud to me. We don’t do anything formal, they normally just read through their sets while I make lunch, put laundry in the wash, or clean up in the kitchen 🙂
Do you teach your kids word families? Would you like more sets of these flashcards?
I used word families all the time when I taught first grade. This is a great resource – thanks for creating and sharing it!
What a clever idea! Thanks for sharing :).
This is brilliant. My oldest just turned 4 so I’m just beginning to think in this direction for him. Thanks for these ideas!