CVC words and alphabet recognition, sounds, and letter formation are such important beginning reading skills. If students don’t have a solid understanding of their letters, than reading, writing, and spelling will be a struggle. Building CVC words and understanding how to put letters together and take sounds apart is also such an important foundational skill. The following Alphabet & CVC word practice activities are designed to help your students practice basic letter formation, sound recognition skills as well as segmenting, blending, building, and reading CVC words!
These activities are designed to be used over and over. You can simply slide the pages into plastic binder sleeves and put them in a binder. You can also laminate them and use them as individual work mats. Lastly, you can laminate them and then use a binding machine to bind them into books.
Alphabet Intervention and Practice Ideas
Alphabet Fill & Find
Physically building letters in a tactile way is a fantastic activity to help students cement proper letter formation in their minds. I’ve also included the sign language for each letter because adding body movements to learning letters is very helpful for students. Students can fill the upper and lowercase letters with play-doh, monkey foam, wiki stix, or counters. The options are limitless! Then, students use a dry erase marker to find the 5 upper and lowercase letters in different fonts and then circle the 3 pictures that begin with that letter sound. I’ve also had them just place play-doh or a counter on top of the find it sections instead.
ABC Trace, Write, Say
Students cannot build and write cvc words without an understanding of alphabet sounds and letter formation. Since so many school have little to no time to work on letter formation, the ABC practice book is designed to help teach or review upper and lower case letter formation sounds, and recognition. Each letter is formatted the same way: an upper case letter to trace with space to write their own, a lowercase letter to trace with space to write their own, and then a picture prompt to help recall the sound the letter makes. Blank lines are provided after the letter z to practice any letters or words you might want them to practice such as CVC words or their name.
Grab, Say, & Build
Both an ABC and CVC word version is included. There are two ways to play.
1.Place small balls of playdoh on each circle. Have students pick up one at a time and name the letter, make the letter sound, or read the word. They can then build the letter with playdoh.
2.Give students counters or playdoh. Say a letter name or make a letter sound, or say a CVC word and have students cover that letter until they cover the entire board.
ABC Follow Directions
These activities help students practice following directions and practice letter names, sounds, and writing letters! 5 playing mats with teacher directions are included. The shape in the bottom left corner matches the direction cards. A blank direction template is also included if you want to create your own!
CVC Word Intervention and Practice Ideas
The CVC activities are designed to help students practice blending, segmenting, reading, and building CVC words in a variety of scaffolded activities. These activities can be completed a variety of ways- many of which work best in a one-on-one or small group setting.
Sound Smash: Segmenting and Blending
This activity helps students blend sounds in CVC words to read words. Place a ball of playdoh on each dot. Use the included alphabet cards to create a CVC word (or write with a dry erase marker). Students smash the playdoh as they make the sound of each letter, and then slide their finger across the arrow to blend the word together. Be sure to model this a few times before asking the student to do it on their own.
Build CVC Words
The CVC word building pages are designed for gradual release. The vowel picture clues are included on the pages where students can build only short a or short e (etc) CVC words. This allows students to only focus on the beginning and ending sounds. Next, you can use the pages that include more than one vowel in the middle, and finally students can build words using just the blank template.
Flip, Say, Write: Blending Practice
Students place a card on the first space, say it, and then write the CVC word with a dry erase marker. You can simply place the cards in a baggie, or, you can use the picture card template and velcro and to attach the cards. This makes it easier to give students specific words for them to practice making.
This template is also perfect for working on word segmentation. The student puts a card in the first box, and then segments the word (example: fan is /f/ /a/ /n/). I like to use a car and have my students “park it” in each space as the make the beginning, medial, and ending sound. You can also use counters or have them simply touch each box. Answer keys are included to allow students to check their answers.
Roll a CVC Word: Real or Nonsense
Recognizing real and nonsense words is an important skill in early reading development. Students will roll a die and then write that letter in the first space. They then read the word and mark if it’s a real word or a nonsense word. There are versions for singular words families as well as mixed versions for each short vowel.
Find and Circle CVC Word Hunt
Students will find the hidden CVC words in the picture! Students can use a magnifying glass to find the small words hidden in the picture. In the bottom, right corner, picture clues are included so students know what short vowel CVC words to hunt for. There are 5 versions included: one for each short vowel.
Alphabet and Vowel References
The alphabet and vowel references are helpful tools to keep handy if students need a little extra support. The alphabet reference includes the same picture cues as the trace, write, and say activity. The vowel reference includes different prompts. These are the prompts that I use in my own classroom. They have been very successful in helping students distinguish between the different vowel sounds.
All of these ABC and CVC activities are available in my CVC Word and Alphabet Intervention Activities: Write On Wipe Off resource!
Want more word work ideas? Click here!
