Decoding Words With Blends

The newest matching card game in our collection features words with initial and final blends. All words are ccvc or cvcc - making them decodable! 

Learning blends using ccvc and cvcc words is perfect to scaffold students from single sounds. 

Using this activity will familiarize your students with not only blends but word families too. Embedding a word family sort into this activity gives you an extra layer of depth to student learning.

As students read words and match them into families (-vc or -vcc) they will:
  • recognize short single sounds
  • recognize initial and final 2 letter consonant blends
  • build -vc and -vcc word families
  • read decodable words
  • explore rhyme  

Reading words with blends

Print the word cards on colored paper. Laminate and trim the word cards.

decodable reading words

Once students have arranged their cards into word families ask them to read all the words. 

If students have difficulty completing this activity
  • revisit your teaching of how to identify 2 single sounds as a consonant blend
  • review the 22 initial consonant blends and final blends (using flashcards or a digital warm up)
  • review short vowel sounds
  • review sounding-out word strategies that you use in your classroom
  • ask students to sound-out some words and listen for the word - observe them doing this and model it for them if needed
building word banks

Find more activities to support your reading program in our collections: