{"id":748,"date":"2018-11-09T14:07:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T19:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/?p=748"},"modified":"2025-09-04T09:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T13:55:11","slug":"word-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/word-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Families Ideas &amp; Activities To Engage Your First Grade Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<p>Teaching word families is a great way to help beginning readers and writers make simple words! A word family is a group of words with the same letter pattern. For example, cat, bat, and hat are all part of the &#8220;at&#8221; word family because the last 2 letters are the same. You can simply change the first letter to make a new rhyming word.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-families-at-1.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-families-at-1.png?resize=960%2C720\" alt=\"at word family\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When children learn word families and become familiar with the letter patterns, it can help them with fluency.\u00a0 They will not have to sound out each individual letter but instead be able to recognize the pattern quickly.<\/p>\n<h2>Ideas for Teaching Word Families<\/h2>\n<p>Older students can usually make lists of rhyming words on their own.\u00a0 Just give them a paper with the word family endings and have them change the first letter to create new words.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/home\/word-families\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-family-i.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-family-i.jpg?resize=2820%2C2114\" alt=\"short i word family\" width=\"2820\" height=\"2114\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you have some craft foam, you can cut out some small squares to make letter tiles.\u00a0 Students can practice making word families by changing the first letter.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"making word families\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-families-short-a.jpg?resize=1024%2C768\" alt=\"word families activity\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beginning readers and writers may require more guidance to make new words.\u00a0 These <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Product\/Word-Families-Center-3486069?utm_source=Word%20Families%20Blog%20Post&amp;utm_campaign=Word%20Families%20Center\">Word Families Strips<\/a> are fun to use with dry erase markers!\u00a0 Students can use the beginning sound of each picture to make the first word.\u00a0 After that, all they need to do is write one letter in front of each set of letters to create new words.\u00a0 When they are finished they can copy the lists they have made into their notebooks for extra writing practice.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Product\/Word-Families-Center-3486069?utm_source=Word%20Families%20Blog%20Post&amp;utm_campaign=Word%20Families%20Center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"word families literacy center\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-families-activity.jpg?resize=1024%2C716\" alt=\"word families activity\" width=\"1024\" height=\"716\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Another fun activity is making posters.\u00a0 Students can work in groups to make drawings of all the words in one word family.\u00a0 When they are finished, you can hang the posters around the classroom for reference.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-families-an.jpg?resize=1024%2C788\" alt=\"word families\" width=\"1024\" height=\"788\" \/><\/p>\n<p>How do you teach word families in your classroom?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Product\/Word-Families-Center-Making-Words-Activity-3486069?utm_source=Word%20Families%20Blog%20Post&amp;utm_campaign=Word%20Families%20Activity\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"word families center\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word_fams.png?resize=540%2C960\" alt=\"word families activities\" width=\"540\" height=\"960\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Product\/Word-Families-Center-3486069?utm_source=Word%20Families%20Blog%20Post&amp;utm_campaign=Word%20Families%20Center\">Word Families Literacy Center<\/a> comes with both print and digital versions for use in the classroom of for distance learning!\u00a0 You can check out this resource here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Product\/Word-Families-Center-3486069?utm_source=Word%20Families%20Blog%20Post&amp;utm_campaign=Word%20Families%20Center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"word family activity\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/word-families-grade-1.png?resize=378%2C378\" alt=\"word families activity\" width=\"378\" height=\"378\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Are you looking for more literacy centers?<\/p>\n<p>Check out my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/literacy-centers-for-first-grade\/\">Literacy Centers for Frist Grade Blog Post<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\">\n<p>Teaching word families is a great way to help beginning readers and writers make simple words! A word family is a group of words with <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/word-families\/\" title=\"Word Families Ideas &amp; Activities To Engage Your First Grade Students\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[44,61,45,41,42,43],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-work","tag-cvc","tag-literacy-centers","tag-rhyming-words","tag-word-families","tag-word-work","tag-words"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/word-families-activity.png?fit=825%2C619","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3544,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/3544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theteachingrabbit.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}