Sounding Out Short Vowel Words {CVC Unfold and Blend}

Many times, kids struggle with sounding out short vowel words. Even if the words are only three letters {also known as CVC words}, it can be very laborious. Sometimes, it’s because they aren’t developmentally ready, yet. Other times, they just need a little practice. And still other times, more tricks are needed, which you can read about in our post, Helping Kids Sound Out Words.

MBug {age 4} knows all her letters and sounds, but guesses at many CVC words instead of using the letter sounds. So I made these foldable word strips to help her understand how she can start sounding out short vowel words.

The FREE download at the end of this post. Just click on the teal, oval button.

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Sounding Out Short Vowel Words

To prepare these foldable CVC strips, print out the short vowel(s) you’d like. {There are 10 strips for each vowel.} If your child is struggling to understand the concept of sounding out and blending sounds in words, I’d only focus on one vowel, which is what we did.

Print the strips onto cardstock. I don’t recommend using copy paper because you can see through it, defeating the purpose of folding the strips. Cut out the strips; then fold in the strip on each dotted line until only the first letter is seen, like you can see in the image below with a short o example.

Model how to say the sound of the first letter to your child. Unfold one time, and then say the second letter sound. Unfold another time and say the last letter sound. Blend those sounds together. At first, it may sound like d—o—g, with separation in between each letter sound, but then say them a little faster d-o-g until you get to dog.

 

Once you have the word blended together, unfold one more time to reveal the image and check your answer. This is MBug doing bat with our short a foldable strips.

 

What did I expect from this activity with MBug? Success and immediate application of how to sound out short vowel words in her readings? Absolutely not! To be honest, once I release a little of the responsibility to her, she struggled quite a bit, especially with blending the three sounds. What did I do? I jumped back in and modeled some more. I kept it light-hearted and fun. It is VITALLY important to constantly “take a temperature” of your child’s frustration level. Always be ready to provide more support.

My main purpose here was exposure. I wanted her to see that she can use letter sounds to help her sound out these short vowel words. And I wanted it to be playful and focused, not a shame session of, “Why can’t you just blend those sounds together?” We will be doing this again, probably many times, even using the same short vowel sound strips along with The Measured Mom’s Word Slider Cards and the word family lessons from Reading the Alphabet.

 

 

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$5.00Add to cart

• Word Slider Cards from The Measured Mom {these contain CVC words AND longer words, too!}
• Flip a Word with Short Vowel Word Family
• Short Vowel Word Study App 

 

Follow This Reading Mama’s board Word Study/Phonics on Pinterest.

 

 

 

~Becky