This year, MBug {4 years old} and I are moving slowly through Reading the Alphabet. Some new family dynamics have made it difficult for me to go any faster and that’s okay. We just work it in when we can. She still loves to “do school” and had so much fun with this word family matching game that we played with lesson 14’s IG word family printables. And it’s oh, so simple!!
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If you’ve spent any time on Pinterest, you’ve probably seen the term word family. Basically, a word family is a group of words that share a rime {and ending part of the word that is spelled the same}. For example, dog, frog, and log are a part of the word family OG while night, light, and bright are a part of the word family IGHT.
Many beginning readers benefit from learning to read by word families. That’s why the first level of our Short Vowel Word Study App starts with simple word families.
Word Family Resources
Just this past week, we played a word family matching game with lesson 14’s IG family cards from Reading the Alphabet. {The cards pictured are from our bundle pack.} You can also find more word family word/picture cards in lesson 7- AT family, lesson 20- OT family, lesson 26- ET family, and lesson 31- UG family as well as our Set 1 BOB Books printables.
Before we played the game, we sorted and matched the word family words and picture cards a couple of times in our pocket chart. We did this the day before we played the matching game and again right before we played the word family matching game.
To do this, I placed all the words on the left side of the pocket chart. The first time, we read them like this d-ig, dig and then she found the picture to match. The second time, I provided less support to see if she could read the words.
Word Family Matching Game
{I always print the cards onto cardstock so that they are sturdy and so you can’t see through them from the back. I don’t always laminate them, but if you have multiple children who will handle them, I highly suggest it.}
Playing this word family matching game is SUPER simple and provides meaningful and multiple exposure to reading words by word family, which can help kids many kids blend sounds together better. Here’s how:
1. Separate your cards into onsets {blue letters}, rimes {IG chunk}, and IG pictures. Lay them all face down into three different groups on the table top or floor area. In the image above, you can see what’s under each group, but cards should be face down for the game.
2. Turn over one onset card {first letter} and say the sound /d/.
3. Turn over one rime card {IG} and say IG. Yes, I know they’re all the same, but you’d be surprised how many kids don’t realize this! Now, put the onset /d/ and IG together to say DIG.
4. Lastly, turn over an IG picture and see if it matches the word you just read. If it’s not, you turn all the cards back over and it’s the next person’s turn.
But if you get a match, you get to keep them. Happy girl!
Let me just say that I’m not one of those moms who feels I need to let my kids win every time I play a game with them. But with this game, the less I match, the more she has to read. Hehe. Plus, she thinks she’s really beating me. So, it’s a win-win.
More Word Family Fun
- Short Vowel Word Study App – Level 1 has several games kids can play with word families
- Reading the Alphabet– Lesson 7, 14, 20, 26, & 31
- Word Family Blackout
- Flip a Word {short vowel word families}
- BOB Books Rhyming Words Printables {with word family activities}
- The Measured Mom has two FANTASTIC short vowel word family products: Word Family Mats and Word Family Houses.
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~Becky
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