Post from: Blisstree

Word Families: Construct a Word

His first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence – it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press. The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted’s career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children’s primer using only 225 “new-reader” vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children’s book author and illustrator.

As a teacher or as a parent you can use Dr. Seuss to help teach Word Families and reading.

Post from: Blisstree

Dr. Seuss Teaches Word Families

Word families also encourage children to find patterns in words so they can recall this information in a timely fashion.

Word families encourage children to spell better as you guide them to search for a word in the family that they already know how to spell. For example if they know how to spell can then they can remember the chunk (an) to spell van. They have to only replace the first letter.

I just read a book to AJ yesterday that had great word families in it and he giggled the entire way through…Duck in a Truck. See, Duck is driving a truck and gets stuck in the muck.

Patterns are important to kids, especially kids who have trouble reading, paying attention, or listening. If we can show them that reading is fun because sometimes it rhymes, then we can catch their attention. How much fun is a Duck who goes flying into the muck and gets stuck?

Now, take for example, the word “all”. Once a child has learned this sight word we can teach that child to “chunk” or about word families.

“all” can become ball, call, fall, hall, mall, tall, wall, etc. all with the same sound.

There are 37 common word families:

The most common word families include: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk.

Post from: Blisstree

What are Word Families?

So, as teachers we mix whole language (word families) with phonics.

Here is a list of word families and rhyme words (although names should not be included).

Great Books for Parents and Teachers (because we all know that the great ones are hard to find!):

• Easy Lessons for Teaching Word Families (Grades K-2)
• Word Family Tales Learning Library
• Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers
• Word Family Activities: Long Vowels Grd K-1 (Word Family Activities) This one has a series.

Post from: Blisstree

Word Family Charts and Word Families

These charts are perfect for teachers, homeschoolers, parents, and anyone who would like to help children read.

 Click here to see the large collection of free printable phonograms.

Post from: Blisstree

Free Word Family Charts from Jan Brett