CVC Word Building Workshop
Teacher: Demo Teacher | Grade: 1 | Subject: Reading/ELA | Duration: 45 minutes
📝 Description: Students practice letter sounds and blending skills by building and reading CVC words using magnetic letters and guided practice activities.
Standards
- RF.1.2.B - Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends
- RF.1.2.D - Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes)
- RF.1.3.A - Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonants and short vowels
- RF.1.3.B - Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Identify and produce the correct sounds for consonants and short vowels with 80% accuracy
- Build CVC words using magnetic letters by listening to spoken words
- Blend individual letter sounds to read complete CVC words
- Segment CVC words into their individual phonemes (sounds)
Materials Needed
- Magnetic letters (multiple sets of common consonants and short vowels)
- Individual whiteboards and dry erase markers (1 per student)
- Decodable books with CVC words
- CVC word picture cards (cat, dog, sun, etc.)
- Small cookie sheets or magnetic boards (1 per student pair)
- Letter sound reference chart
Lesson Structure
Opening (5 minutes)
Begin with a quick letter sound warm-up. Show letter cards and have students say the sounds chorally. Focus on letters that will be used in today's CVC words: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, o, d. Use the reference chart to support struggling students.
Main Activity (35 minutes)
Step-by-step instructions:
- Guided Letter Sound Review (5 minutes): Display magnetic letters on board. Point to each letter and have students say the sound. For struggling students, use hand gestures or mouth position cues. Practice problematic sounds multiple times.
- Teacher Modeling (5 minutes): Using magnetic letters, demonstrate building the word "cat." Say each sound slowly (/c/ /a/ /t/) while placing letters. Then blend sounds together, running your finger under the letters. Repeat with "sit" and "dog."
- Guided Practice - Building Words (10 minutes): Give student pairs magnetic letters and cookie sheets. Call out simple CVC words (mat, sit, pan, top). Students work together to build words. Walk around providing immediate feedback on letter placement and sound identification.
- Blending Practice on Whiteboards (5 minutes): Students copy the magnetic letter words onto their whiteboards. Practice blending by having students run their finger under each word while saying it. Use choral reading for confidence building.
- Word Segmentation Activity (5 minutes): Say CVC words aloud. Students hold up the number of fingers for each sound they hear, then write the letters on whiteboards. Start with words from previous activities (cat, sit, mat).
- Decodable Book Reading (5 minutes): In pairs, students read simple decodable books containing CVC words. Encourage finger pointing and sounding out difficult words. Circulate to support blending techniques.
Closing (5 minutes)
Review the day's CVC words by having students build one final word with magnetic letters. Each student builds "sun" and reads it aloud to a partner.
Quick Check: What sound does 's' make? Show me how to blend the sounds in 'top.' What three sounds do you hear in 'dog'?
Formative Assessment
During the lesson, look for:
- Students correctly identifying individual letter sounds without hesitation
- Accurate placement of magnetic letters when building CVC words from dictation
- Smooth blending of sounds without adding extra sounds between letters (avoiding "cuh-a-tuh" for cat)
Differentiation Strategies
Support for Struggling Students:
- Provide letter sound reference chart at desk level and pre-select easier letter combinations (using only s, a, t, p, i, n initially)
- Use hand-over-hand guidance when building words with magnetic letters and allow extra processing time
- Partner struggling students with stronger readers and provide picture cards as visual cues for word meaning
Challenge for Advanced Learners:
- Introduce consonant blends (st, pl, cr) or have students create their own CVC words and illustrate them
- Challenge students to build word families (cat, bat, hat, rat) and identify the pattern
- Provide longer decodable texts with more complex sentence structures while maintaining CVC word focus
ELL/ELD Support:
- Use picture cards alongside each CVC word to support vocabulary development and meaning connection
- Pre-teach vocabulary meanings before focusing on decoding and encourage native language connections where appropriate
- Provide additional oral practice with English phonemes that may not exist in students' first languages