Ideas to teach Word Families

Teaching word families is like getting a 2 for 1 bargain at the store. Students begin to notice word patterns when you teach word families.  The lessons improve students' spelling and reading skills. 

My students found patterns in everything, including their clothing, when I taught word families.  I used their new found interest in their clothing to make a writing center. I took scraps of material like the ones in the picture above.  Students clipped a square of material to half of a piece of white paper.  They continued the pattern of the material on the white paper.  They folded the paper and used it as a cover for a word family story.
Organize book bags with word family themes.  Students can read the books at school or use them as homework.  I wrote about books bags here.  
Set up a word family book center.  Scholastic has sets of books that are perfect for early readers.
Recent research conducted by Mueller and Oppenheimer found that college students who took notes by hand instead of a laptop retained more.  This was not a surprise to me.  I saw a big improvement in my students' writing AND reading when I incorporated home writing journals with my homework program.

This is why I wanted to include writing with the readers that I recently made.  Students read the first sentence of each page. After reading the emergent reader, students:
  • Trace the words 
  • Copy the words in the shaped boxes
  • There are 2 options for the blank line:
    • Option 1:  Copy the sentence
    • Option 2:  Write about the picture 
So far, I have made the following emergent readers with a word family theme.
Emergent Reader: -AD word family
Emergent Reader: -ED word family
Emergent Reader: -IN word family
Emergent Reader: -OP word family
Emergent Reader: -UG word family

FREE Emergent Reader: -OG word family


Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE.
Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.

No comments