CVC Words and Pictures for Free Printable CVC Games!

Reading CVC words is an exciting step on the road to reading. In this blog post, I will share free CVC words and pictures cards that I designed for playing CVC games. These games will help your child practice reading CVC words in an engaging and fun way. I will give you instructions for using the picture cards and word cards  to play a variety of phonics games. These games can be played with an individual child or a small group of children.  They are great for any age group that is learning to sound out short vowel words. You will find that these CVC activities will be especially useful for teaching students in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. You can find the pdf file for the free printable CVC words and pictures cards at the bottom of the post. 

CVC Reading

If your child has learned the basic letter sounds (the common consonant sounds and short vowel sounds) and has some phonemic awareness, then he or she may be ready to start reading CVC words! Consonant-vowel-consonant words (cvc words for short) are three-letter words with a short vowel sound that follow the pattern consonant vowel consonant. Some examples of short vowel cvc words are: cat, hat, ten, men, pig, big, fog, jog, hug, and bug.  These are simple words that are pretty straight-forward to decode, which is why we usually start with CVC words in English language arts when teaching a child to read.

The games and activities in this post will help a child practice sounding out CVC words.

CVC Games with CVC Words and Pictures Cards

Find the CVC Word! 

This is a good game to play with children who are just barely learning to sound out CVC words. It’s simple and quick and a great way for young readers to practice the important skills of decoding. 

Prepare the Game:

• Print, laminate (optional, but highly recommended for extra durability), and cut out the CVC word and picture cards. You can find the free pdf at the bottom of the post. 

• For this CVC activity, it is best to group words that start with the same letter in order to discourage your child from making a guess based on initial consonant sound rather than trying to read the words. You will see what I mean in a minute. Start with the following groups of word cards and their corresponding picture cards: bus, bed, bug, box, and bat; cup, can, and cat; mop, man, map, mud, and mad; and pot, pin, pen, and pig. 

Instructions for the Game:

• Place one picture card and two to three word cards next to the picture card. One of the word cards will be the word that matches the picture. The other two word cards will be words that begin with the same beginning consonant. For example, I will put the pig picture card on the table, and line up the word cards pig, pin, and pen next to the pig picture card. I will ask my child to match the picture card to the correct word card.
• You want to use word cards with the same initial consonant as the correct CVC word because you want your child to read the words – you don’t want your child to try to match the word to the picture based on the initial consonant sound. If your child is prone to trickiness (I have some children like that, so I’m speaking from experience!), you may want to use word cards that have the same beginning consonant sounds AND the same middle vowel sounds. You can use the following groups of cards if this is a concern: pig and pin; cat and can; bug and bus; mad, map, and man. 

Variations:

• You can also play this game in the reverse – by laying down one CVC word card and two to three picture cards and asking your child to match them. 

• One final variation of this activity is to lay out two to three word cards and the corresponding picture cards (once again, use words that begin with the same consonant), and have your child match the pictures to the correct CVC words. This is a good variation to use if you need your child to do independent work for a few minutes because it is easy to check what they have done. However, I recommend working side by side with your child whenever possible at this early stage of learning to read.

CVC Slap Jack

​This game is great for two or more players – a parent can be the second player, or this can be done in a group of children.

Instructions for CVC Slap Jack:

• Print and cut out the picture cards and corresponding word cards that you would like to use. Note: I highly recommend laminating the cards so that they will hold up to repeated use. If you choose to laminate them, you will want to do that before you cut them apart. 

• Place the word cards in one stack and the picture cards in another stack. You might want to use one fourth to one half of the cards to begin with. Just make sure you have the picture cards that correspond to the word cards that you are using if you decide to split the deck. 

• Distribute the word cards so that each player has part of the stack in front of them. Place the stacks face down on the table. 

• Flip over one picture card and tell each of the players to flip over the card on top of their word card stack. The players will read the words that have been flipped over. When one of the players spots the word that matches with the picture card, he will slap the card and yell “Slap Jack!”. The player then keeps the pair of cards. The children might need to flip the cards several times before they find the match. The person who has the most cards at the end wins!

CVC Mixup! 

This is a good game for the child who likes to beat the timer! This is also a game that is easy to integrate movement into. 

Instructions: 

• Print, laminate (optional but highly recommended!), and cut out the CVC word cards and picture cards.

• Choose several pairs of CVC word cards and their matching picture cards for this activity.

• Mix up the word and picture cards. Then place the CVC word cards next to a picture card that does not match.

• Ask your child to correct the matches by reading the words and putting them next to the correct picture card. If your child enjoys speed games, you can have him or her try to beat the timer. I like using sand timers for this. One or two minutes should be about right. This is stressful to some kids, so if your child does not enjoy trying to beat the timer you can skip that element. 

• To include movement in the game, place some of the mismatched pairs on one side of the room and some of the mismatched pairs on the other side of the room. Ask your child to only move one card at a time, and to correct the pairs as quickly as possible. You’ll have lots of running back and forth, especially if you are using a timer! 

CVC Words and Pictures Matching Game

This fun matching game will help young readers learn to read CVC words in no time at all! 

Prepare the CVC Matching Game:

• Print and cut out the picture cards and corresponding word cards that you would like to use. Note: I highly recommend laminating the cards so that they will hold up to repeated use. If you choose to laminate them, you will want to do that before you cut them apart. 

• If your child is just beginning to sound out words, you might want to use only one word family from the cards – for example, you might choose to use only the short a words for now, and add in the short e words, short i words, short o words, and the short u words as your child becomes more proficient at sounding out the words. If your child has a pretty good handle on the short vowel sounds, you can also just take a few cards from each CVC word list and mix them together. I would not recommend playing this game with all the picture and words cards at the very beginning – there are too many and your child will likely get overwhelmed or bored with the game. 

• Take the cards that you have chosen, lay out the picture cards face down in a grid, and lay out the word cards face down in a separate grid right next to the picture card grid. 

Instructions for the CVC Matching Game:

• The first player will flip over two cards. one from the picture card grid and one from the word card grid. He or she will read the word and see if the word card matches the picture card. If there is a match, the child gets to collect the match and take another turn. If the cards do not match, the child will flip the cards back to face down. His or her turn is over. The next player will do the same. 

• The game is over when all the matches are collected, or when the children are losing interest, getting frustrated, or mentally fatigued. Remember that you want to keep it fun and enjoyable! It is so important to nurture a positive association with reading when children are young. 

Free Printable CVC Words with Pictures Cards

Please remember that all the free printables on my site, including these CVC Word and Picture Cards are for personal use ONLY. They may be used in a classroom, but they may not be copied, altered, or sold. By printing, downloading, or using these pdf files or the printed cards you agree to these terms. If you have questions about proper use or would like to seek permission for usage, please contact me! 

I hope these CVC Cards are helpful to you in the wonderful and important work of teaching children to read! Thank you for visiting! Come again soon!