short a word family – ad am an ap at ag

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Hello! How about we meet the short vowel a word family today?

Once the child is aware of the phonetic alphabet sounds, we move forward to blending those sounds to form words.

If you are just starting out with word families, I highly recommend this fun activity that I have created for phonics word families.

Let’s discuss the 6 worksheets for ap, ad, ag, an, am, and at words.

 

Word families are an important step toward blending. Word families provide our emergent readers with a predictable pattern in an otherwise confusing language. Their patterns can be recognized by the child thus making the process of blending easier for our readers.

 

 

Initially, most children find it difficult to blend three sounds such as ‘p-a-n.‘ That is where word families come in. We first teach the child to blend the middle and ending sound ‘a-n’ and then we add the beginning sound to it. See how I have arranged the -an tiles together and beginning sounds separately in the above image. See if your child can come up with a word for the picture.

 

 

 

If it’s too simple for your child, jumble it up! Let the child try and segment the word fan with these three tiles. I have used only three-letter words in this pack.

 

 

Challenge your child further by adding an extra tile. Suggest her to segment the word ‘man.’

 

Or like this! See if the child can try the word, ‘pan’ or ‘ran’.

 

an word family

After the much-loved sticking activity, it’s time to write the words in the blocks.

 

Next is the word family worksheet for short a am words. The words are jam, ram, ham, dam, and yam. Word sort activities like these help strengthen the concept and prepare the child for spellings.

 

 

The ‘ad’ family has pad, mad, lad, bad and dad.

 

In the above worksheet, we have the -ap words. We have pictures for tap, nap, map, gap, and cap.

 

 

 

The ‘ag’ family has bag, rag, wag, tag and gag words to build.

 

The last is the ‘at’ family with pictures of hat, bat, cat, rat, and mat. Cut the letter tiles and form the words. Write the words in the blocks.

I would suggest reading ‘Fat Cat Sat on the Mat’ book with your child. This funny rhyming storybook will help your kid learn to read. It will make your kid laugh. Most of the words are three letters which the child can decode.

Encourage your child to read it aloud for maximum effect.

 

With repeating sounds and words, beginning readers will grow their reading confidence as they laugh about the cat and the rat and their sibling-style squabble.

The cut and paste worksheet pack is a subscriber freebie.