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Whether you’re navigating your first year of teaching or simply looking to spice up your reading instruction, we’ve got everything you’ll need to teach CVC words for kindergarten. This includes educational games, loads of activities, and a few teacher tips to improve your instruction. Not to mention, at the bottom of this page is a CVC word list to get you started. But first:

What are CVC words?

Simply put, CVC is an acronym which stands for a three-letter word that contains a consonant—vowel—consonant pattern. In case you need to brush up on kindergarten phonics, consonants make up 21 of the 26 letters of the alphabet – every letter but, you guessed it, the five vowels [a,e,i,o,u].

More technically speaking, CVC words are one syllable and closed. This means that the vowel will always be in the middle and make the short sound. Some examples of CVC words include cat, bed, pit, mop, and dug. There are more than 200 CVC words in the English language, but don’t confuse all three letter words for CVC words. For example, bee has three letters but it isn’t CVC because it ends in a vowel instead of a consonant, is open, and the vowel is long.

Why are CVC Words Important?

If learning how to read is like riding a bike, these three letter words are the wheels. They are the first step in learning to decode, or “sound it out,” and you won’t be able to go very far without them.

What happens in our brains is that we learn these phonics patterns and internalize them, much like riding a bike, until we recognize them without the help of our conscious brains. For many kindergarteners, blending these three simple sounds is an arduous task. Without automatic recognition, reading becomes a slow, tedious, and frustrating task that is only compounded as additional phonics skills (CVCe, blends & digraphs, multisyllabic rules) are taught.

CVC Words in the Classroom

Since you can already count on CVC instruction somewhere within the majority of kindergarten curriculums, these activities serve to supplement existing instruction so that across the country, our classrooms are packed with five- and six-year-olds blending, segmenting, and decoding CVC words with ease.

Segmenting Activities

What: Segmenting is the ability to take a whole word and break it up into each of it’s sounds, or phonemes. For example, a kindergartener should be able to listen to the word tug and break it apart by the first sound /t/, the middle sound /u/, and the end sound /g/ in written, reading, and verbal form.

Activities:

• Play I Spy: This game helps learners develop phonemic awareness segmenting skills and is highly adaptable. You can use beginning letter sounds, “I spy something that starts with the /b/ sound…” or rhymes, vowels, or end sounds.
• Songs, rhymes, and chants: Jack Hartman is a great YouTube channel for CVC songs where he uses body movements to segment words before blending them again. Similarly, there are lots of fun chants to “break down words” as well as simply clapping along to the words/beat/syllables.
• Printables: find the missing letter sheets or cut & glue activities are great examples of segmenting CVC words. These are great to have around for early finishers or to take home as well. Click the images below for details.

• Elkonin Boxes: The holy grail of phone segmentation. For CVC words, students would have three boxes. The teacher says a word [dog] and the students place manipulatives in each separate box for each sound they hear. You can also use letter tiles as well or do a similar activity but incorporate writing (phoneme grapheme mapping).
• CVC Jump: Get those active bodies moving by jumping around the room and calling out the letter for each sound they hear.

Blending Activities

What: If segmenting is breaking down the phonemes (sounds), blending is putting them together to form a word. The most important element of blending is that students connect the sounds. So, instead of saying /m/ (pause) /a/ (pause) /t/, students say mmmmaaaaattttt. Below are a variety of phonics and phonemic awareness activities that you can easily incorporate into your routines with minimal prep.

Activities:

• Rubber Band Blending (Phonemic Awareness Activity): Teacher calls out three choppy, segmented sounds and the students, using a manipulative like a rubber band or slinky, must blend them together slowly. After they blend a few times, make them “say it fast” and ask what word they made. Similar variations include bead slides or CVC sliders.
• Toy Car: Drive a little toy car under each sound in the written word, verbally blending as they drive. If they can’t hear the word, they can gradually speed up until they understand what word they’re making. This is fun, hands on, and the visual representation helps comprehension.
• Use Decodables: Sometimes we get so lost in our activities and worksheets that we forget to stress the connection of CVC words and reading. Children should understand that the practice will make them a better reader, so make sure you have books that give them the opportunity to find their CVC words while they’re reading.

Additional CVC Activities

Teaching CVC words is one of the most adaptable skills which allows for more creativity in your instruction and the ability to accommodate every learning style and ability. 

 Further examples of the different kinds of practice you could include would be incorporating multisensory materials like sand, play doh, and art supplies for kinesthetic learners, games like Splat! for wiggly bodies, or CVC bingo, puzzles, or memory games for whole group instruction. 

It takes a lot of students a long time for the “click” to happen with reading CVC words. Be patient with yourself and with your students and have fun creatively applying some of these games and activities to your lessons.

Make sure to visit again for more tips and inspiration check out my CVC worksheets found here.  

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Building reading fluency is all about repetition and practice, so the key is to make the process fun! There are so many fun and interactive ways that you can help your learner to practice their fluency skills both at home and in the classroom.

Activities that Build Reading Fluency

What activities will promote fluency in reading?

1. Read aloud to model reading fluency. Not only is reading aloud one of the easiest and most fun activities for building reading fluency, the benefits of reading aloud to children are endless. By reading aloud, we model what good reading looks and sounds like, and we are broadening children’s vocabulary and building a love of reading. Younger children often love hearing the same book over and over again, which gives them the increased benefit of repetition! 
2. Cutouts can be great practice for building reading fluency, especially for younger learners. CVC worksheets use letter cards or cutouts to help kids practice identifying and matching letters, letter combinations, and their corresponding sounds. Children also enjoy using cutouts to make their own books by choosing a title and pasting or writing the words for several pages. In addition, cutouts can also be used to practice CVC words through spelling games with cutout letters and design sheets.
3. Spelling Words not only give learners practice spelling new words, they also add new words to the learner’s vocabulary. This builds reading confidence and fluency by increasing the number of words that students are familiar with as they come across them during reading.
4. Games give students the opportunity to practice their skills and gain confidence in a fun and exciting way that doesn’t feel like work at all! Fun games for elementary students include Kahoot, Gimkit and Blooket.

Choose, Draw, Spell and Write Printable

Frequently engaging in these interactive activities from an early age helps to build confidence, fluency, and a love of reading.  Fortunately, there are many easy activities parents and teachers can use to help children to practice these skills at home and at school.

This Savvy worksheet is an example of quality, pre-made resource that you can use to encourage fluency practice and help students practice. Click this link to find even more.

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Classroom Posters

Not only do classroom posters help to create a welcoming and encouraging classroom environment, they also have the power to enhance student learning. A few relevant and purposeful posters displayed in the classroom can help students to use key vocabulary, apply important concepts and to problem solve - all of which contribute to students’ increased confidence and academic stamina.

3 Posters You Will Want in Your Classroom

1. Inspirational and Growth Mindset Posters can contribute to a positive and motivating classroom environment for students. Inspirational quotes provide encouraging reminders for students that are feeling unfocused or stressed. And growth mindset posters help to boost students’ confidence and motivate them to continue working hard toward their goals. This can be especially beneficial as students tackle challenging tasks. Click this link for mindset posters to display in your classroom.
2. Letters, Numbers and Shapes Posters are fantastic for preschool and early elementary classrooms. They help students to quickly recognize letters, numbers and shapes and to remember them long term. As students apply these concepts to more complex skills like reading and math, these posters provide quick reference back to concepts they have already learned.

Letters Posters

3. Reading Posters are perfect for every grade. Library reading posters, reading genre posters, and reading corner posters can inspire students as they choose books for independent reading. Reading posters can also be more strategy or skill focused. This would include anchor charts, close reading posters, and reading comprehension posters.

Writing Process Poster

Classroom posters enhance student learning by providing words of encouragement and a quick visual reminder of the frequently used concepts and strategies they will need to apply in your classroom. Having a few relevant and purposeful posters displayed in your classroom will benefit your students both emotionally and academically. Click this link to see more classroom posters. 

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Teaching Phonics in Kindergarten

Why is Phonics Instruction Important for Struggling Readers?

Phonics instruction provides learners with the skills they need to use letter sounds to read individual words. Since phonics skills are needed to decode and read individual words, they are  a critical component of developing strong readers. When a student is struggling to read, it’s often a sign that intervention is needed in the area of phonics. 

Teacher in Reading

3 Steps for Phonics Intervention

1. Phonics and Early Literacy Diagnostic - In order to provide targeted intervention for struggling readers, teachers use diagnostics to assess students skills in the different areas of phonics. These diagnostics usually look at the following: producing letter sounds, spelling and reading individual words. The data gathered from the diagnostics helps teachers to determine students’ strengths and areas of concern before making a plan for intervention.
2. Specific Objective Based Learning - Once the data has been gathered from the diagnostics, teachers can create an intervention plan for helping the struggling reader. This plan should include explicit instruction in the areas of concern as well as many opportunities to practice. Once the teacher has the data from the diagnostics and has provided explicit instruction in the areas of concern, students benefit from practicing these skills frequently at school and at home. Practicing at home not only strengthens reading skills, it helps to build confidence and a love of reading. For an example of a great printable for CVC practice, click here.

CVC Worksheets Printable Worksheets

3. Revisiting the Assessment - This allows teachers to reassess students’ progress towards mastering the areas of concern. This is a great opportunity for students, teachers, and parents to celebrate the progress that has been made so far. If there are still areas of concern, the new data can be used to adjust the intervention plan to meet the needs of the struggling reader.

CVC Worksheets Printable Worksheets

Intervention and extra practice in the area of fluency can occur both at home and at school, which will help to develop the skills and confidence needed to become strong readers. Once students master phonics skills, they can progress to practicing fluency and comprehension. Click here to find more resources designed to support young learners both at home and at school.

Teaching Phonics in Kindergarten