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This Reading Mama

FREE Compound Words Pack

By thisreadingmama 22 Comments

As our younger readers progress through the first grade, their texts begin to include longer words. Sometimes, these are compound words, words that are made up of smaller words. Because compound words look long, young readers will sometimes shut down. This is what happened with ALuv {currently and the end of 1st grade}.

 

FREE Card Games for Compound Words - This Reading Mama

 

We’d already worked through breaking apart some two-syllable words and he was doing well with those, but I needed something a little extra to boost his confidence in breaking apart those longer compound words.  So I created a few compound word games for him.  These were such a big hit for him that I had to share.

*The pictures & free printable in this post have been updated since 2013. Find the free printable at the end of this post by clicking on the teal download button.
{Sorry that some of the images are blurry. My camera isn’t working right now, so I used my phone for a few of these.}

Compound Words Matching Games

The cards are simple, but there are several different games you can play with them, like:

matching compound words puzzles

matching up the separate words to the compound word such as lady + bug = ladybug.

 

compound words matching game with words and pictures

I placed all the compound word picture cards so we could see them and we played a matching games with just the words. The goal was to make real words {words that matched the pictures}.  At the end of the game, the person with the most pairs was declared the winner.

 

 

making and reading silly compound words

we came across a few funny ones as we played, which got some good laughs in!

 

 

A couple of other compound word games might include:

matching pictures of compound words

Matching compound word pictures: water + fall = waterfall. For this game, you flip over 3 cards on your turn.

 

matching compound words using only word cards

Matching compound words only. This is more of a challenging game. Again, flip over 3 word cards on your turn, trying to match 2 individual words with the correct compound word. Example: wind + shield = windshield.

 

The most important part of learning to decode is connecting what kids learn out of context with in context reading. Now when my son gets to one of those long and “scary” words; I gently remind him, “That’s a compound word and you can break it apart into smaller words.”

 

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FREE Compound Word Popsicle Puzzles - This Reading Mama

Popsicle Compound Word Puzzles 

 

button for free printable

Download-Print Help

 

 

~Becky

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Filed Under: Learn to Read, Phonics and Word Study Tagged With: MSW, PS

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Comments

  1. Anna - the Measured Mom says

    May 27, 2013 at 8:50 am

    Love this, Becky! Beautiful printable!

    Reply
    • Ana says

      September 6, 2016 at 10:42 am

      Could I have the free printable? Compound words. Can’t find the download button.

      Reply
      • thisreadingmama says

        September 6, 2016 at 11:02 am

        Scroll down. It’s a teal download button that says, “Click here to get your free printable.”

        Reply
    • Mary Wilson says

      January 22, 2019 at 5:22 pm

      My six year old needs practice on compound words and this is a great resource.

      Reply
  2. Crystal www.crystalstinytreasures.com says

    May 27, 2013 at 11:08 am

    This looks fun! Downloaded and ready for action in the fall:-)

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      May 27, 2013 at 11:13 am

      Awesome! You’re so organized, already thinking about next fall!

      Reply
  3. Lucy Penfold says

    July 22, 2015 at 7:07 am

    Hi Becky, I love your Compound Word picture game? I was just wondering do you have template that I can use? I would like to do all the compound words into pictures as well and would like to keep it the same. Template to type sight words and print them as well.

    Thanks,

    Lucy

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      July 22, 2015 at 9:01 pm

      I could email you a completely blank template via a PowerPoint document, if you’d like.

      Reply
  4. J. Borque says

    April 8, 2018 at 11:46 pm

    Thanks so very much! Great quality!

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      April 9, 2018 at 6:53 am

      Thank you! 🙂

      Reply
  5. Emily Boyett says

    May 16, 2018 at 7:42 pm

    Thank you! Its such a great printable!

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      May 17, 2018 at 6:37 am

      You’re welcome! 🙂

      Reply
  6. zarafshan banday says

    May 2, 2020 at 6:47 pm

    Hi Becky
    I like your compound word game..
    Thanks for sharing..

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      May 6, 2020 at 1:33 pm

      You’re welcome! 🙂

      Reply
  7. Rebekkah says

    July 7, 2020 at 5:09 pm

    Bless you! I’m working with some low-level readers and so need literacy centers they can do!

    Reply
  8. Patti says

    October 21, 2020 at 6:43 pm

    This is amazing, even more during quarantine time and my limited free time and artistic skills 🙂 THANK YOU!!!!

    Reply
  9. Alyzee says

    January 31, 2021 at 4:31 pm

    WOW Thanks a lot for this free printable document! I’m going to use it tomorrow with my kids, they’re going to love it! Thanks for the work cuz it must have taken a long time!

    Reply

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Hi! I’m Becky, a homeschooling mama with 4 blessings who keep me on my toes {and knees}. Before homeschooling, I was a classroom teacher (M.Ed.) and reading tutor. Read more about me here.

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