• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Shop
    • Alphabet
    • Centers
    • Math
    • Reading
    • Sight Words
  • Blog
  • Monthly Activity Bundles
  • Free Resources
  • About
  • Contact

Miss Kindergarten

Kindergarten Teacher Blog

  • Alphabet
    • Letter Formation
    • Phonics
    • Writing
  • Centers
    • Literacy Centers
    • Math Centers
    • Morning Work
  • Holidays
    • Crafts
    • Fall
    • Winter
    • Spring
    • Summer
  • Math
    • Addition & Subtraction
    • Calendar
    • Number Sense
  • Reading
    • CVC Words
    • CVCe Words
    • Fluency Practice
    • Guided Reading
    • Sight Words
  • Teacher Tips
    • Back to School
    • Bulletin Boards
    • Classroom Management
    • Classroom Organization
    • Classroom Setup
Home
  • Shop
  • Blog
    • Alphabet
    • Centers
    • Holidays
    • Math
    • Reading
    • Teacher Tips
  • Monthly Bundles
  • Free Resources
  • Contact

What is a CVC Word?

April 1, 2019 misskindergarten Leave a Comment

6 fun ways to decode CVC words

If you are a kindergarten teacher or a parent of a kindergartner, you know you need to teach your kids how to read and write CVC words. If you are asking yourself, “what is a CVC word?” or “how do I teach CVC words?” then this post is for you! I am going to share what CVC words are, how to teach them, and fun activities your students can use in the classroom to practice reading and writing CVC words.

This post contains affiliate links. By purchasing through this link, we get a small commission. Rest assured – we only share links to products that we use and love!

What is a CVC word exactly?

A CVC word is made up of a consonant, vowel, and consonant sound. When a vowel is followed by a consonant, it is a closed syllable and makes the vowel say its sound. Cat is an example of a CVC word. Each letter makes its sound and is therefore decodable and easy for a beginning reader to sound out. Dog, big, pot, sun, and bag are also examples of CVC words.

WHY DO WE TEACH CVC WORDS?

Since CVC words are easily decodable, they help our beginning readers feel successful when learning how to read. Once your students master reading CVC words, they can start learning to read other phonics skills including magic e words (long vowel words), vowel teams, and words that have blends & digraphs (two consonants next to each other in a word).

At the start of the school year, I teach my kindergartners how to read CVC words without using any letters! We work on our phonemic awareness first so that we understand that a word is made up of letter sounds. I like to use these CVC sound boxes to help my student learn the sounds in each word.

Click here to download the CVC sound boxes for free!
Download these CVC Sound Boxes here!

First, we say the word and count the boxes to see how many sounds are in the word. Then, we say each sound on its own and push a chip up as we say it. For the word cat, we say /c/, /a/, /t/ and push up 3 chips. After we push up all the sounds, we practice saying the word “just like we talk”. I like to have my students slide their finger under the word or push a toy car along the arrow when saying the word.

To extend the learning, I will also point to each box and ask my students to tell me the sound each one makes or I will say “where is the /t/ sound?” and they will point to the last box.

It’s also a lot of fun to use magnetic bingo chips to push up the sounds, then sweep the magnetic wand across the sounds when saying the whole word.

5 Other Activities to Practice CVC Words

Once your students have a strong grasp on phonemic awareness and know the letter sounds, you can start incorporating letters into their CVC words practice. Here are some of my favorite activities to use!

Muffin Tin Spelling

Did you know muffin tins are perfect magnet boards for building CVC words?! {And when your kiddos are ready for 4-letter words, just turn the muffin tin horizontal!} The magnet letters stick to the muffin tin, too. Just add some oven mitts and you have a super fun center! You can download these CVC cards & recording sheet to use with your students here.

A picture of a muffin tin with magnet letters inside the each circle to spell a CVC word.
CVC Play Doh Mats

Play doh mats are the perfect mix of learning and fun. Almost every kid loves to use play-doh and it really helps to build their fine motor muscles in their fingers. These mats are super versatile and can be used in a number of different ways!

CVC Magnet Letters

I’m also a strong believer in teaching my students using multiple modalities. Along with play-doh, we also use stamps, beads, and magnet letters to practice making CVC words. We’re all about hands-on learning! It’s really important to incorporate those fine motor skills in whenever you can.

Building a CVC word with magnet letters
CVC Word Builders

Cutting, gluing, and manipulating letters to build CVC words is another great strategy. Word builders incorporate all of those skills into one fun little activity! You can read all about word builders and try our -at family word builders for FREE!

Stamping CVC Words

My students love using alphabet stamps to practice building CVC words. They’re great for letter recognition, fine motor practice, and they break up the monotonous “paper and pencil” work. 

I hope this gives you some ideas for introducing CVC words to your kindergartners! In my next post, I will share how I teach students to read CVC words.

CVC Words, Reading, Phonics

Free Download

Sight Word Practice

Reading sight words in context improves reading fluency! Use with these teacher-tested and student-approved activities. Sign up to join my email list below, and this sight word practice will be sent straight to your inbox!

You May Also Enjoy These

Beginning Sounds Worksheets and Activitiesreading cvc wordsReading CVC Words with Read and Reveal CardsHow to Teach the Alphabet

Primary Sidebar

Welcome

Hello, I’m Hadar!

Welcome to Miss Kindergarten, my kindergarten blog. I’m so happy you’re here! If you are looking for hands-on, engaging kindergarten activities, you came to the right place! I’m here to save you time by sharing engaging kindergarten teacher resources, and hopefully spark some ideas for your own kindergarten lesson plans!

About Me

Sign Up

Join thousands of educators and get teaching tips, success stories, freebies, new product updates, and sales alerts delivered straight to your inbox!

From My Shop

Sight Word Fluency Practice

February Activity Bundle

Addition and Subtraction Task Cards

boom cards mega bundle

BOOM CARDS BUNDLE

Shop All Resources

Follow @misskindergarten on Instagram for more great ideas!

misskindergarten

View

Mar 6

Open
Love this name writing practice from Kelly @buildi Love this name writing practice from Kelly @buildingbrilliance 😍😍 It’s a free download on her account! You can slide it in a plastic sleeve for continued practice too! #saturdayteachershare

misskindergarten

View

Mar 5

Open
I always love seeing how cute the monthly crafts t I always love seeing how cute the monthly crafts turn out! Thanks for sharing your little cuties @meg_k_dyckman 😍🌈🍀

misskindergarten

View

Mar 4

Open
🎉UPDATE!🎉 The digital guided reading bundle 🎉UPDATE!🎉
The digital guided reading bundle has been updated!! You can re-download your purchase to get access to the Boom bundle link! The 6 short a word families will automatically load directly into your Boom library! **The Google Slides ready option will be updated next week!!**
⌛️The PRESALE discounted price is still going through midnight EST time TONIGHT!! If you were thinking about grabbing this CVC bundle, take advantage of the discount before tomorrow! 🎉🎉 {link in profile}
I hope y’all love these guided reading lessons as much as I do! 😍😍

misskindergarten

View

Mar 3

Open
🎉Freebie! We love to use this roll & write prac 🎉Freebie! We love to use this roll & write practice in our sight word center! It is available as an editable PDF so you can add the words you need directly into the document! Visit the link in my profile to read more about how we use this center and download the freebie!
#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #sightwordsarefun

misskindergarten

View

Mar 2

Open
🎉Digital Guided Reading!🎉 Have you been look 🎉Digital Guided Reading!🎉
Have you been looking for a resource to help your kinders practice reading virtually or independently in your classroom? We are SO excited about these digital guided readers! Swipe to see what’s included in each deck! I also shared about them in my stories so you can see how we included AUDIO SUPPORT!🎉

🥳You can grab the discounted PRESALE bundle price through March 3! On Wednesday, you’ll get the link to add the short vowel CVC readers to your Boom Library! 💃🏼 This bundle will include 30 short vowel books!

🤩Even better news!? Laurin and I have had some requests to offer these for Google Slides too, so if you need them in Google, it’s your ☘️LUCKY DAY!☘️ We will be adding a Google Slides option to this Boom Bundle as well! 🎉

Go check out Laurin @theprimarybrain to see her short vowel blends & digraphs guided readers too!

misskindergarten

View

Feb 27

Open
Sarah from @snippetsbysarah is a wealth of knowled Sarah from @snippetsbysarah is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to phonics and reading strategies! I love this strategy she shares to use with beginning readers who are struggling to blend cvc words in text. Encourage them to blend the first two sounds together first, then add the final sound. Make sure to follow her for more reading strategies and ideas! #saturdayteachershare

misskindergarten

View

Feb 27

Open
Here’s another fun way to work on reading fluenc Here’s another fun way to work on reading fluency! We love to use this one as a warm-up during reading groups. Everyone takes a turn rolling the die and reading the sentence as quickly as they can! 🎲

misskindergarten

View

Feb 25

Open
📚Fun fluency practice! Did you know beginning r 📚Fun fluency practice! Did you know beginning readers are much more successful with reading sight words when they see them in context? I shared a blog post all about how we work on our building reading fluency using these sight word sentences!

➡️Start by grouping the sentences by word family and as your students become more proficient, you can mix the word families together! Follow the link in my profile to see how we work on reading fluency during guided reading groups.
Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2021 Miss Kindergarten  •  All rights reserved  •  Privacy Policy  •  Site Design by Emily White Designs