Teaching students how to sound out words is no easy task! While using phonics and the Science of Reading can help, it can still take time! I have found using a simple system to teach CVC words in elementary that is consistent helps students learn to read CVC words faster.
When to Teach CVC Words
Just like everything, you need to make sure you are following a step by step process. Before you teach CVC words, you want your students to be relatively proficient in consonant sounds and short vowel sounds. It’s vital your students know their letter sounds well so they can read fast enough to understand what the word is. Once students know this, you can start to blend the sounds together to make CVC words. If you need a resource to teach CVC words, check out this short vowels CVC word bundle! So, how do you teach students CVC words? With this process.
1: Warm Up
Before you start reading words, make sure you review some letter sounds that you know they will need to know. You can do this with flashcards, a white board, or an erase’em exercise.
2: Teach CVC Words with Phoneme Segmentation
This is a part two of a warmup. Choose three to five CVC words from the lesson. Create sound boxes, use playdough, or have students tap their arm as they say the sounds. You want to use several phonics skills during this process. Not just the ones you are teaching in this lesson.
3: Decode the Word
When you first start teaching a new CVC word, make sure you decode each word in isolation. Then, you can put it in a sentence. This is the process I use.
- First, teach any new sounds
- Second, decode a word together. For example, if you’re working with the short e, then use “jet.”
- Third, write some short e CVC words down on the whiteboard and have students decode them together. You can segment the words first and then blend them if needed.
- Fourth, write down a sentence. In the sentence, you can use the CVC words or structure you taught last week. For example, if you worked on the short a sound before, you might write: “The cat is on a red mat.”
- Finally, have students write some words if they are ready. Otherwise, you can continue to work through the third and fourth steps.
Click the image below if you want to watch my step-by-step video on YouTube.
Reminders When you Teach CVC Words
This is a simple process students can replicate at home to practice their CVC words. When you are teaching using this process, there are a few things you need to remember. One, always review old sounds as well as teach new ones. If you are learning new words as you learn sounds, you don’t want students to get too hung up on the phoneme that they can’t sound out other words. Second, make sure you practice phonological awareness regularly in your classroom. Next, always decode words in isolation. If you try to use a whole sentence, your students may get overwhelmed. Finally, encode or write words with your students.
Teaching CVC words is no easy task. Some students will be great at it right away while others struggle. If you have several ESL students or students who are struggling, make sure they have the phonics skills they need to see success when they first start reading! With this process, your students will be reading decodable texts in no time!
Get your own set of free CVC word lists.
