Now that she knows all her letters and sounds and has other important pre-reading skills, I’ve been teaching my daughter (4 years, 9 months) to read short vowel words.
I’m not going to tell you she’s been jumping up and down about it.
In fact, until recently, she didn’t want to learn at all.
What made the difference was teaching her to blend sounds using successive blending (I have a video here all about it if you want to try it.)
Once she figured that out, reading words has been much more fun for her. To take it a step further, I created a simple matching game featuring CVC words with short a (the only short vowel we’ve practiced so far).
I don’t know what it is about matching games, but they’ve always been a big hit with my kids. My Six, who was also reluctant to learn to read, actually begged for more matching games. It’s how I helped him learn his sight words.
Watch the quick video above to see the activity in action.
YOU’LL LOVE THIS PRACTICAL BOOK!
Looking for an easy-to-read guide to help you reach all readers? If you teach kindergarten through third grade, this is the book for you. Get practical ideas and lesson plan templates that you can implement tomorrow!
The great thing about memory games is that they’re very simple to make. Just cut index cards in half and write a match on each half.
Since I decided to create a game using pictures, writing on index cards wasn’t going to work for me. (Drawing is just not one of my gifts.) So I created this simple game on my computer.
The download has 16 different matching games. The corner of each card tells you the set that it belongs to so you don’t mix them up.
I recommend printing each set on a different color of cardstock. This way you can easily sort them.
Here are the word families featured in each game:
- Game 1 – at
- Game 2 – at, ap
- Game 3 – ap, ag
- Game 4 – at, ag
- Game 5 – ad, ag
- Game 6 – ap, ad
- Game 7 – at, ap, ad
- game 8 – ap, ab
- Game 9 – ag, ab, at
- Game 10 – an, ab
- Game 11 – an, ag, ab
- Game 12 – am, an
- Game 13 – am, an, ag
- game 14 – at, ab, am
- Game 15 – at, an, am
- Game 16 – at, ab, am, an, ag, ap
I hope your learners love this game as much as my preschooler does!
YOU’LL LOVE THIS PRACTICAL BOOK!
Looking for an easy-to-read guide to help you reach all readers? If you teach kindergarten through third grade, this is the book for you. Get practical ideas and lesson plan templates that you can implement tomorrow!
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Iris
Do you have the matching CVC word game for the other word families?
Thank you
Heather Groth, Customer Support
Yes, we do! You can find them in the Subscriber Freebies section located here, https://www.themeasuredmom.com/subscriber-freebies/.
Iris
Do you have it for the other vowels? My kids love playing this game.
Heather Groth, Customer Support
Hello Iris! You can find the other vowel CVC matching games in our Subscriber Freebies section here, https://www.themeasuredmom.com/subscriber-freebies/. You’ll find them under the “Reading Games” heading. Thanks!
Cate
Hello! I would love to try this resource, but it will not let me download it. Is this link still available? Thank you.
Heather Groth, Customer Support
Hello Cate! The link is still active, and when you click the yellow “Click to Download” button, the pdf of the matching game should pop right up. You may want to try disabling your ad-blocker, or accessing the post from a different web browser or device. If you try this and are still having difficulty, please email us at hello@themeasuredmom.com so we make sure you can get access to this resource! Thank you!
Laura
Hi! I just noticed that page 39 has exactly the same words as 38. 🙂
Cesia
Hi Anna,
Would it be possible to have a set of memory games but for vowel teams? And thanks again for being so generous in sharing all these great resources with us!! Have a good one.
Anna G
Thanks for that request, Cesia – I’ll see what I can do! 🙂
Amber
Trying to print the short vowel phonics games but it just holds and nothing ever happens! Is there something else that I need to do?
Anna G
I’m sorry, I don’t know what the issue would be. 🙁
Susan
Thanks so much for these great games! I”ve printed them ALL out and can’t wait to start using them with my little learners.
I did notice one mistake – Game 10 for “i” is exactly the same as Game 9 for “i”.
Susan
and Game 10 for “i” is listed as Game 5 on the actual cards:) I was scratching my head a bit trying to figure this one out:)
Anna G
oops! I will get to that edit when I can. It may be a while, though!
Mary Westerlind
Thank you for sharing your amazing work and ideas, I’m so appreciative! Excellent resources to use with my class, can’t wait to get them printed out and put them into use. Mary
Anna G
You’re welcome, Mary!
Clare
This is great, we love memory games 🙂
Anna G
I’m glad you like them, Clare!
senthilkumar
very useful for children to learn by their own.. Thankyou mam..
Anna G
You’re very welcome, Senthilkumar!
Ayesha sana Sohel
Very good resource… Waiting for other word families.. Thanks a lot!
Anna G
You’re welcome, Ayesha!
amy aldridge
Perfect resource! Thank you for sharing.
Anna G
You’re welcome, Amy!
Cesia K.
Thank you, Anna! DD and I we will be waiting for the word families for the rest of the vowels! Keep them coming. -Cesia
Anna G
I’m working on it! 🙂
Priscilla Hammond
Thank you for this wonderful resource! It’s just what I need for my class.
Priscilla Hammond
Anna G
You’re welcome, Priscilla!
Sharmeen
Hi Anna, thank yoi for sharing short a game. Its handy and wonderful. Waiting for other short vowels game. Hope will receive them soon.
Tc
Anna G
Yes I hope so too!
Julie Carrington
Love this idea, waiting for the other word games hoping soon 🙂
Anna G
I hope to add them to the subscriber library soon. 🙂
Akanksha
I believe there is a printing mistake in the last matching game. It says “cag” where it should be “cab”
Thank you for the wonderful freebie
Anna G
Thanks – I’ll fix that soon!