5 Activities to Teach Students How to Read CVC Words

Do you still have students that can’t read CVC words and you are out of ideas or activities to instruct them? Well, keep reading. I will share five activities you could use to teach students how to read CVC words.

As you know, students come to our class with a variety of literacy skills. This means that students will have different knowledge of letters, letter sounds, and words. You should use the data you collected to target specific phonics skills you need to teach. Knowing what short vowel sounds they can or can’t hear will help you determine what you should teach in small groups.

There are five activities I recommend: sound boxes, Build and Write mats, reading fluency passages, CVC worksheets, and stamp activities.

Spelling CVC Words

You can use spell CVC words to get students practicing writing the sounds in sequential order. Students put one sound in each box to make the word. For beginning readers, students should use 2 sound boxes to write CV words like me, go, or he. The next step is to use 3 sound boxes to write short a, or any target vowel, CVC words.

The materials you will need are sound boxes, dry erase markers and CVC cards. First, laminate the sound boxes so you can reuse it repeatedly.

First, pass out the sound boxes and dry erase markers. The, pick a CVC card. Last, say the word. Students should write one sound in each box. Check their work.

Build and Write Mats

Build and Write mats are a perfect partner center activity. Students pick a word, build the word using magnetic letters and write the word. They can check their spelling using the answer sheet.

Reading Fluency Passages

These CVC reading fluency passages are my favorite worksheets because students read words in the context of a sentence. If your students are ready, they can read short targeted word family passages. First, they read the word. Then, they match the word, Next, they read the passage and last they answer a comprehension question.

Word Builder Worksheets

For these word build worksheets, students cut the letters from the bottom of the page and arrange them to make a word for each picture.

Stamp The Missing Letter

This is my student’s favorite literacy center activity. Students stamp the missing sound. I love these worksheets because you can differentiate your instruction easily by having students work on the skill they need to practice the most.