Word Families

I use Words Their Way to teach word study.  I think this program is great because it's so hands-on for students.  Each week I introduce a new spelling pattern and the kiddos get to manipulate the words within that pattern as they sort, match, read, and write their word sort pieces.  At the end of the week, students glue their sort into a Word Study Journal and write a list of the words to reference as their own word study dictionary.  We began the year by doing the word family sorts.  Many of these are review from Kindergarten, but it's important to go over the short vowel sounds and practice these common word families because they are essential to reading and writing.

I made posters for each of the word families as well so that the kiddos can easily reference them during reading and writing.   (I got the clipart for the posters online.)