to
Word Way: Word Family Activities

All in the Family 6 CD Set

Example: The All in the "A" Family CD is a full color reproducible teaching unit CD that has over 750 pages (which doesn't include the readers in the total count). It is meant to supplement and extend instruction for 27 word families for short a, long a and vowel digraphs for ai (ail, ain, and air). Included are original songs, poems, and chants, word cards, sorts, stationery, shape books, posters, word building mats, mini books, word slides, puzzles, readers and matching big books, and other independent games and activities to practice word family skills.

The Bonus CD contains sets of like items for easier location, suggestions for teaching word families, recommended order of instruction for first grade and more!

The 6 CD set includes more than 2400 pages of activities and materials as well as over 100 readers and big books. More than 70 word families are addressed for each of the five vowels and vowel digraphs and diphthongs.

Proceeds from the sales of these CDs are dedicated to establishing and maintaining a scholarship fund and to support the growth of literacy for children and teachers.  International shipping costs will have to be calculated at the time of purchase.

All in the Family Six CD Set: $49.95 (Save $20)

All in the Family With Toons CDs

The All in the Family with Toons Practice Pages CD is a full color reproducible teaching unit CD that has over 2400 pages of activities and materials for teaching word families. It is meant to supplement and extend instruction for over 100 word families for each of the five vowels, vowel digraphs, diphthongs and R-Controlled Vowels. Included are original songs, poems, chants, word cards, sorts, stationery, shape books, posters, word building mats, mini books, word slides, and puzzles.

The Toons Word Family Big Book CD contains over 150 reproducible big books (8½ x 11)) that focus on word family patterns and words and match the text in the word family readers. Great for introducing and reviewing word families in small groups or whole class. May be used for shared reading and/or placed in a center.

The Toons Word Family Readers CD has more than 150 reproducible readers that match the big books. All individual student readers are formatted two to a page for ease of reproduction and assembly and have a minimum of 8 pages. See sample below.

Toons and Tunes: Working with Word Family Onsets and Rimes Songbook CD has 178 pages of poems and songs in print ready format with an index and teaching suggestions. Also included are 17 recorded songs from the collection, These are perfect for developing spelling and word recognition using onsets and rimes along with old familiar tunes. These songs are delightfully illustrated by Ron Leishman of Toonaday.com and Toonclipart.com.

                  

The Toons Puzzles and Games Activity CD provides independent activities, puzzles and games for centers and small group instruction for word families.

The Word Family Tools for the Teacher CD includes suggestions for teaching word families, charts, word wall cards and more. Also included are reproducibles: 5 Color and Write Sets, 5 word search books, large Picture/Word cards for the bulletin board, 5 Rhyme and Spell word books, and Sentence Writing materials. Each word family has a keyword or anchor picture to help young readers and spellers as they learn to decode and write independently.

Proceeds from the sales of these CDs are dedicated to maintaining a scholarship fund and to support the growth of literacy for children and teachers.  International shipping costs will have to be calculated at the time of purchase.

        All in the Family with Toons Practice Pages CD
Price: $19.95

Toons Word Family Big Book CD
$12.95

Toons Word Family Readers CD
Price: $12.95

Toons Family Songbook CD
Price: $19.95

Toons Word Family Puzzles and Games Activity CD
Price:$15.95

Toons Word Family Tools for the Teacher CD
Price: $15.95

Get all six: $59.95 Save $37.75!

Penny Push Set

Penny Push Directions

The Penny Push is a strategy for developing and practicing one phonemic awareness task: phoneme segmentation. During the activity the children say, hear and push a penny for each sound they hear in a word. There are no symbols or letters involved. Research shows that the more senses you use to teach something, the more likely it is that the at-risk learner will grasp the concept. This document provides an in-depth look at Elkonin boxes and the Penny Push.
 

Word Family Chart

This colorful chart is perfect for the beginning writer to use as a reference. Duplicate, laminate and place one in each student's writing folder. The illustrations depict children who are busy and involved, an attribute that will be sure to appeal to your students.

To make and use these little books: Duplicate a set and fold each of the word family pages in half with the blank pages on the inside. Fold the cover in half and tuck the word family pages inside with the fold on the right. (Keep in alphabetical order.) Bind or staple on the left. Students may record their own word family words inside to form a personal reading and writing dictionary.
 

Word Families, Onsets and Rimes, Phonograms:
They're all the same!
 

Literacy teachers like to say that using onsets and rimes teaches children through analogy. I like to think that the process enables children to take ownership of their reading and writing. "I can write at, so I can write cat and lots of other words." It makes believers out of young children who previously said, "I can’t!" when asked to read or write such words. I started teaching in 1967 (the dark ages) and we used what we called word families. Now we call them rimes and linguists prefer to say phonograms, but to the classroom teacher they are a tool to move their children into literacy. In 1970, Wylie and Durrell outlined 37 commonly used patterns in their book, Teaching Vowels Through Phonograms. Those words will be in a red font in the list below. Many authors have published lists for facilitating the use of rimes in their phonics, phonemic awareness and spelling programs. Fountas and Pinnell have made things easy for us. They have a complete list in Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom (Heinemann). Their list contains single syllable words that would be appropriate for young learners. For multisyllabic words, older readers and writers may spell one syllable at a time.

The list that I have here is in alphabetical order from left to right. If some word families appear twice, it’s because they should be (i.e. -ome as in home and in some). Unfortunately, some of these rimes do not have lengthy word lists. I am only developing activities for the most common rimes and for those that are frequently requested by teachers and  parents to support spelling and decoding programs. The word family sets that are available on this website are designated with a cranberry colored font below.   

Cernek, Kim. 2000. Exploring Word Families: Using Word Patterns to Build Beginning Reading Skills. Creative Teaching Press.

Lakeshore Learning Materials: www.lakeshorelearning.com

Learning Resources Word Families Classroom Kit:  www.learningresources.com

Lynch, Judy. 1999. Easy Lessons for Teaching Word Families (Grades K-2).

Novelli, Joan. 2002. 30 Wonderful Word Family Games: With Pull-Out Poster Game.

Rosenberg, Mary. 2001. The Word Family Activity Book (Grades K-2).