Short Vowel Sound Books to Read After Learning VC and CVC Words

Have you printed the free high frequency word flashcards with phonics rules on the back I shared in a previous post? You may find them helpful. Make some blank flashcards to write more high frequency words you want your beginning reader to practice. 

I've shown ways to introduce some VC words and CVC words. V stands for vowel and C stands consonant. If a child is comfortable reading words with short vowel sounds, it is time to try to add all the VC and CVC words to your pile of flashcards to practice. Add a few at a time and remind your reader to be ready for a short vowel sound.

VC - and, at, in, is, it, on, up
VCV - can, red, yes, did, big, this, will, with, not, but, fun, run

Here are some books I recommend for a child reading short vowel words. These are the most interesting phonics books I've found. If you have other suggestions for short vowel stories, please share in a comment.
Playful Pals
Animal Antics
Clever Critters
Starfall Short Vowel Pals

I'm also recommending any Brand New Readers or any Scholastic Readers Level 1 to include stories with picture clues, some rhyming, and some repeated language ideal for beginning readers. I believe children should have a combination of phonics and easy reader books. Phonics books provide a child an opportunity to practice sounding out words but should not be the only books he or she is given to read.

Usborne Books & More has phonics books and early reader books.

Short Vowel Sound Books to Read After Learning VC and CVC Words

Printing Practice and Cursive Practice - Teach Letter Formation with Finger Paint

My favorite type of printing is manuscript form with mostly continuous strokes. This form is similar to D'Nealian printing. If you prefer ball and stick printing, you will find some links further down the page showing the correct formation for this type of printing.  

I taught my oldest son how to form cursive letters in third grade. He liked it, and his writing improved quickly. He transferred what he learned to writing with a pencil.

Getting Ready to Finger Paint


Teaching a child to form letters with finger paint is fun and allows a child to focus on the formation without the added skill of holding a pencil the proper way. Holding a pencil will develop with time and practice. I recommend having a child practice with paper and pencil also. The finger paint method is just a fun addition. You will probably get more cooperation from a reluctant child or a child with developing fine motor skills.

Forming the Letters a, c, d, and g


You can teach phonics rules and spelling with finger paint.


Handwriting Links:
Cursive Writing
The Importance of Teaching Handwriting
Free Handwriting Worksheets

Printing Practice and Cursive Practice - Teach Letter Formation with Finger Paint

Use Magnetic Letters to Teach Decoding Words Before Reading a Book

You can select a few words from a book your child is about to read and practice sounding out these words before reading the book. This strategy can be used with children who tend to guess at words using meaning and picture clues. My daughter was this type of reader. She did great with beginning readers, but she fell behind her twin brother as books included more words and less picture clues.

Magnetic letters or writing words with a space between sounds can be used to help your child make and blend the sounds in a word.  Your child will be ready to read the words in a book instead of just guess at a word. Readers need to combine many skills and thought processes to be effective readers. A reader who is guessing at words shows he or she is thinking about the story and wants the story to make sense. This is a good thing, but these readers need to be taught to connect letters to sounds when reading. Some readers are great at sounding out words, but they don't think about what they are reading.

Here is a picture of a book with words to sound out from a phonics reading series from Starfall.

Here's a video of some words I chose to sound out before reading Peg the Hen.

Here's a video of my son reading Peg the Hen. Find a free animated version of this story here.





Monkey See, Monkey Do is a Hello Reader from Scholastic. I highly recommend Hello Readers from Scholastic for beginning readers. The following video from shows a few words I would choose to have a child practice sounding out before reading Monkey See, Monkey Do. If a child looks at you to check if he or she read a word correctly, direct the child to the word to see if it was read correctly. This will teach a child to look at letters and letter combinations when reading. If a word didn't make sense, have a child combine looking at the letters and thinking about the story or picture.

Here's a video of sounding out a few words from Monkey See, Monkey Do.

Give this a try with a few words from a book your child is about to read. A little practice will go a long way. Make sure to talk about the story and pictures. What is happening? What might happen next? Find ways to connect your child to stories.
How would your child feel? What would your child do?  Did the story remind your child of something he or she has seen or done? Ask questions and encourage talking before, during, and after a book.

Use Magnetic Letters to Teach Decoding Words Before Reading a Book

Phonograms and Flashcards

Phonograms are letters that make up sounds. Phonograms can be one letter, or they can be a combination of letters. This post contains words with phonograms you may want to start teaching your beginning reader from the free printable high frequency flashcards I shared in a previous post.

Here are some words from the flashcards grouped by phonogram:
ay - play, way, away
ar - are
or - for
ow - how now, down
ow - yellow
ou - out, house
oo - too
ng - thing

You may want to add other high frequency words . Just add a few at a time to learn. Cut cards the same size as the ones you printed and write the new words with a black marker. I suggest keeping words with the same phonics rules or phonograms right next to each other in the flashcard pile while practicing. This will help your beginning reader make patterns and connections.

Here's a resource I found online you may find helpful when teaching phonograms.
PhonogramPage

You may want to make flashcards with phonograms for your beginning reader.

Are you using these flashcards? Let me know how it's going in a comment.

Phonograms and Flashcards

Supporting a Beginning Reader

I have a good friend who asked me for some advice to help her child improve in reading. The most important advice we decided was to allow her daughter to listen for her own mistakes. My friend usually jumped in immediately after a mistake. She is now waiting until her daughter can hear that something did not sound right. If her daughter finishes a sentence and something didn't sound right, she lets her know that what she read didn't sound quite right to her if her daughter didn't seem to notice. Her daughter is then asked to read the sentence again. If she gets stuck on a word then my friend helps her sound it out or tells her the word.

Joanne Meier wrote a great article at Reading Rockets that supplies some helpful information for parents supporting a beginning reader. Click on this title to get to the article. How to Read with a Beginning Reader

Check out this post for ways I suggest helping a reader fix a mistake when something didn't sound right.

The goal should be for a reader to stop when something doesn't sound right. Let a beginning reader know how proud you are when he or she stops and rereads to fix a mistake without being told. Encourage a reader to reread from the beginning of a sentence if he or she had to work hard on a few words and the flow of the sentence or meaning of the story became interrupted by sounding out words.

Supporting a Beginning Reader

Teach Blends with Magnetic Letters

Blends are tricky for some beginning readers. You can teach blending the letter sounds quickly together with magnetic letters.

When practicing blends I suggest teaching a few at a time with similar sounds.

L Family - cl, sl, fl, pl, bl, gl
R Family - br, cr, dr, fr, pr, tr, gr
Starting with S - sl, st, sp, sn, sc, sw, sk, sm
Starting with T - tr, tw
Starting with C - cl, cr
Starting with F - fl, fr
Starting with B - bl, br
Starting with P - pl, pr
Starting with G - gl, gr
Three Letter Blends - scr, spr, str, spl

Here's a video showing how I teach blends with a beginning reader.




Practicing blends can be fun. It will help your beginning reader a ton. Try a few a day. Let your child think of some words with different blends. Practice making words with short vowels, long vowels, and vowel sound phonograms (ee, ay, ai, ow, ou, oy, oi, aw, au, ew, ui, oo, ea, ar, er, ir, ur, or, oa, ey, ei, ie, igh, eigh, oe, ough, and eu)

Teach Blends with Magnetic Letters

Teach VC Phonics Rule with Hop on Pop

The words is, in, and on follow the VC phonics rule. Here's a video showing how to teach a child these words.



The first pages in Hop on Pop have the words is, in, and on. This is one of my favorite books to let a child practice using newly learned phonics rules. The reading of this book can be shared where an adult reads parts and a child reads parts.

Teach VC Phonics Rule with Hop on Pop

Literactive - Free Early Reading Program with Games and Animated Stories

I can't believe this site is free. Register today and look around. http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.asp

Don't miss the Flash activites. Look in the left column for pre-reading to level 7 activities. I checked out numerous games. There is one problem I found. The sound made for a short a by the computer sounds more like a short u. I suggest sitting with a child and making the correct short a sound during these games.

There are animated stories with games. There are different types and levels of stories in the left column if you are using this site from a computer. The stories are grouped by nursery rhymes, traditional stories, poetry and level 1 to level 5 stories. You can turn the sound on or off to let a child listen to the words or read the words him or herself. There's a scope and sequence guide available for these online stories here.

This site makes it easy to start at any level. You don't have to go from beginning to end in this program. Play some of the beginning reading activities until a child is ready to read.

Use the Hiding Snails game found in level 3 activities to practice reading high frequency words.

Hiding Snails

Go to site to find this game. Click on activities at the top and level 3 in the left column.

Play some CVC games found in level 3 activities like Sliding Penguins.

Sliding Penguins

Have a child read some predictable pattern books from level 1. Picture clues help a child know if a word is right, but a child should be encouraged to use letters when figuring out words. Many children learn to guess at words without using letters in books of this sort. Click on the last word in the story, Dad, to have the computer break the word into sounds. Have a child repeat, point and read these words a few times with and without the computer.

The word wash is good to teach about words that start with wa. Many words that start with wa sound like "wo". (walk, want, water, watch) Talk about what the dad is washing. Make sure a child looks at pictures when reading early reader stories.

The letters ch make one sound and the o in the middle of a CVC word will usually make a short sound in the word chop. Ask a child what the dad accidentally chopped. Discuss the box the boy is holding is a first aid kit.

There's more to this story. Click on reading at the top and choose level 1 in the left column



I think you and your beginning reader will love using Literactive. Sit with a child, interact, and teach as you go.


  

Literactive - Free Early Reading Program with Games and Animated Stories