This fun phonics game will have your child reading short A sound words in no time at all! It’s a fun and quick short A words game that is quick and easy to prepare. The best part is, you get to create joy and connection with your child while he or she learns! What could be better than that?!
Is Your Child Ready to Read Short A Words?
One of the very first steps to learning to read is learning to sound out words that are made with short vowels. Every vowel makes several different sounds. The short sound is the most common sound of a vowel. Once your child has learned all the most common letter sounds (the consonant sounds and the short vowel sounds), she is ready to try sounding out CVC words!
CVC words are single syllable words that are made with a consonant, then a short vowel, then a consonant. An example is the word cat – it begins with a consonant (letter c), then comes a vowel in the middle of the word (short a), and there is another consonant at the end (letter t). There are lots of different ways you can practice sounding out short vowel words, but I try to teach and practice through play as often as possible. Children learn really well through play and they also have a positive association with learning when they play to learn. With that in mind, I’d like to share a really simple and fun game that you can use to help your child practice sounding out short A sound words.
Materials Needed:
All you need for this short A sound game is a set of Short A Charades cards for each person who will play the game and cardstock to print them on. Here is the short A words printable:
How to Prepare Short A Words Charades:
- Print the Short A Charades cards – you need one set for each person who will play the game. You will want to print the cards on a sturdy cardstock.
- Laminate (optional) and cut out the short A words cards. I really recommend laminating them if you can, so that the cards will be durable enough for multiple uses, and for use by multiple children, if you have multiple children that you plan to teach to read.
- Remind your child of the short a sound (the short a sound is the first sound in the word apple and the sound in the middle of the word man). Remind your child that the letter “A” can make a few different sounds, but that the short vowel sounds are the most common vowel sounds.
- Practice sounding out a few short a words, such as words from the at word family: bat, cat, sat, mat, fat, rat, pat, hat.
- If your child is having trouble, you can start with the two letters a and t. Ask your child to make the sound of each letter, then have your child put the two letter sounds together. When he can blend the sounds successfully and recognize the word “at” add a letter to the beginning of “at” to make the rest of the word. Add letter r to the beginning, for example, to make the word rat. You can use a moveable alphabet or fridge magnets and switch the first consonant to make a new word – change rat to cat for example.
- If your child is having trouble catching on with this method, you can try a different word list such as cat, cap, can, cab. Take the first letter and the second letter (letter c and short a, for example) and have your child make the letter sounds and blend them together. When he can blend the first two sounds together, add the last consonant and have him try sounding out the whole word. In this example, he will first try blending c and a, and when he can blend those sounds together, he will add p. If he can sound out the word, then you can switch the p for a different consonant, and keep the ca so that he can try sounding out a new word with a different ending consonant.
- When your child feels somewhat comfortable sounding out short A words, you can start playing the Short A Charades game!
How to Play Short A Words Charades
- Explain the game:
- Each player has a set of cards with short A sound words.
- Each player spreads their short A words cards in front of them.
- On the first player’s turn, all other players close their eyes while she chooses the word card that she wants to act out and puts it face down in front of her. She acts out the word on the card, and the other players look at their cards to find the word she is acting out.
- The players make a guess by holding up a short A word card and saying the word on the card. It is very important that the child says the word – you want to make sure she read the word correctly.
- If she is correct, the matching cards are discarded, and the next player has his turn.
- If you want to make this a competitive game, have the player who guesses correctly keep the matching short A sound word cards and see who has the most cards at the end!
*Note: if your child is just beginning to be able to sound out words, you can start with just a few of the charades cards to avoid overwhelming him. Lay out 3-6 cards to begin with, and add more when he is ready for them. If he is having to work really hard at sounding out the short A sound words, you can even start with just one or two cards!
If your child enjoys this game, you can try out the Short E, Short I, Short O, and Short U charades games as well. You can find the links to these games at the end of the post. When your child is starting to get a handle on the short vowel sound words, you can mix up the different word families so that your child can practice different vowel sounds at the same time.
For more practice sounding out CVC words, you can also try Short Vowel Memory. When your child has mastered reading short vowel CVC words, it’s time to add a new phonics skill – consonant digraphs! You can also introduce reading practice through very simple early readers.
I hope you and your child enjoyed this game! Check our my other phonics games for more fun phonics practice!
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