Build and Write – short vowel ‘u’ words

8 January 2020

Teaching phonics word families helps beginning readers read simple words. A word family is basically a group of words with the same sound pattern. Words belonging to one family are also rhyming words. If you are just starting out with word families, I highly recommend this amazing pack that I have created for phonics word families. In this post, I will be sharing word family worksheets for short vowel u.

We will be covering 5 ‘short vowel u word families’ with pictures in the word family worksheets.

ub words – cub, tub, pub, rub, sub

un words – bun, fun, sun, nun, gun

um words – bum, gum, hum, sum, yum

ut words – cut, gut, hut, tut, nut

ug words – bug, hug, jug, mug, rug

These word family worksheets for short vowel ‘u’ are fun cut and paste letter sort worksheet which covers building and writing the short u word family words and includes un, um, ug, ut, and ud word families.

Firstly, you have to cut the letter tiles. I have used only three-letter words in this pack.

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

I begin by giving 3 tiles to the child which can form a word. It makes it much easier for the child to understand what is actually expected.

If it’s too simple for your child, jumble it up! Let the child try and segment the word fan with these three tiles.

After the much-loved sticking activity, it’s time to write the words in the blocks. Kids love these worksheets since they get to cut and paste the letter tiles and I love these word family worksheets for they also provide writing practice.

Next, is the ub word family. The words are cub, pub, rub, sub, and tub. Word sort activities like these help strengthen the concept and prepare the child for spellings.

You can complement the above CVC word lists with these word family worksheets. Click on the image above to download the bookmarks.

The ut word family has cut, gut, hut, tut, and nut. These short u word family worksheets will also help in expanding your little one’s vocabulary .