Easy Strategies For Teaching CVC Words To Preschoolers

Teaching kids is both fun and rewarding because I get to witness their amazing growth as readers! It’s like watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Starting from learning letter sounds to blending them together, it’s an incredible journey for your little readers. And guess what? There’s a super easy way to help them make that leap from letter sounds to reading words. It’s all about mastering CVC words as their secret weapon. So, if you’re curious to make this happen, keep scrolling for simple strategies on teaching CVC words for preschoolers.

What is a CVC Word?

CVC words are these super cool words that follow a special pattern : consonant-vowel-consonant. Let me give you examples : cat, bed, pin, log and not. Do you The best part isThesee how these words have three letters, with a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant in that exact order?

These words follow a simple phonic rules, meaning each letter makes it sound from beginning sound, middle sound and end sound (i.e : POT /p/ /o/ /t/). CVC words are like super easy to decode and sound out, they are perfect for kids learning how to read. That’s why kids are supposed to mastered letter sounds first, as these will help them to apply with CVC words since they are short and straightforward.

How to teach CVC Words?

Once kids have become letter sound experts, it’s time to take it to the next level and put those sounds together to form CVC words!

Step One : Isolated Words

The first step is to have kids practice reading CVC words one by one, starting with isolated words. This will make kids understand that word are built by combining individual letters. Some activities to practice :
– Match a CVC word to its corresponding picture
– Spot the missing sound in a CVC word
– Build CVC words using letter tiles or play dough
– Writing CVC words that go hand in hand with a picture

These fun activities will keep the kids engaged in repetition to master CVC words like champs! You can also try my FREE CVC puzzle by click om the picture below.

Step Two : Word Families

Now that kids have grasped the concept that sounds can come together to make words, it’s time to level up their decoding skills for CVC words. How? By introducing them to the magical world of word families!

When they understand word families, they can start recognizing patterns and “chunks” within words. This means they won’t have to sound out each individual sound. but rather, they can decode words by recognising these familiar chunks. It’s like cracking a secret code to unlock words faster and more efficiently. I have created word families list based on 5 short vowels and you can download it for FREE by clicking the image below.

Step Three : CVC Word Fluency

Once little readers become acquainted with word families and gain confidence, it’s tiem to take their reading fluency to the next level. There are many activities that can help improve word reading fluency. One popular activity is the “roll and read” game, which kids absolutely love. They will simply roll a dice and read the words on the corresponding word they land on. This game is actually a snake and ladder game, that I modified with CVC word on each box. You will need a dice and a counter as your character. Download the snake and ladder game below.

Step Four : Fluency Drills

At this point, I am not aiming for my 3 year old daughter to be able to read a sentence. I focus more on strengthening her CVC words skill first, since reading a sentence or phrase will require my daughter to memorize some basic sight words.

I have created more activities for CVC words fluency below and the good news is they are writing-free! My daughter cannot write yet, so any kind of tracing is boring for her and writing activity is even more impossible. If your kid is like my daughter, then my worksheets below are perfect for you

First activity is read and match CVC word on the left with the similar CVC word on the right. Get the worksheet for FREE by clicking the image below.

Second activity would be super easy with identify the beginning letter sound of each CVC word. You can download it here.

Third activity is matching the correct CVC word with its corresponding picture. You can challenge your kid by having them saying both words options before they pick the correct one.

The fourth activity is color by word given. Your child is supposed to color each part of the picture according to the corresponding word clue. Super easy and no writing required!