Word Families

Word families are a group of words that are relatedlike; cat, rat, fat, sat. This is the at family. If a child understands what at says they can experiment and make different words by changing the beginning letter. This helps them become a better reader and speller at a young age.

Here's an idea from a blog I stumbled upon called living and learning now

Everyone has Easter Eggs laying around and what a fun way to use them. This is a great way to help beginning readers learn about and create word families.

For those who have a better understanding of how to make words by putting letters together here is a fun game to play.

Start with a common word family base like; at, an, ook, ack, ake, ....

there are many options

Then take turns changing, adding, or taking away a letter.

Here's an example

an (start with the root)

can

ran

tan

man

men (change the a to an e)

ten

ren

hen

ren

pen

pin

This can be played between 2 or more people. As the adult you can steer the words to the words your child needs to work on.

You can be many ways to to win the game. The person who comes up with the longest work, or the person who writes comes up with the last word are just a few examples.

I like to use two different colors so you know who did what words. Its also more fun to to write in colored pencil rather than regular pencil.