How to Teach Short a Words | 9 Practical Tips2023-10-02T10:28:20-05:00

Posted by: Alesia Netuk

Updated: October 2nd, 2023

How to Teach Short a Words | 9 Practical Tips

How to Teach Short a Words | 9 Practical Tips

The first step in teaching students to read is to learn the letter sounds. For some instances, learning vowels can become very tricky for kindergarten kids. The vowel sound can be spelled differently and may struggle with your student’s ability to spell the word correctly. But before you start teaching CVC words, make sure your students can identify the beginning and ending sounds. Start teaching one vowel at a time in the most common patterns. Patterns (word families) are consistent and predictable in spelling, making them the perfect place to start.

Word families are a group of words that have a common pattern. Examples: cat, rat, sat, mat, and hat are words from the AT word family. They all have short A sounds and common letter combinations.

Once you cover one-word family, move to the next one. Make the learning process consistent. Use the same activities; this makes students more comfortable knowing what to expect during the class and focuses on learning short A words. When you cover a few word families, start mixing up the short A words. Students will identify the short sound and the word family.

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Learning the CVC words by word family brings a lot of benefits

Teach the short A words in the common patterns, such as -at, -ad, -an, -am, -at word families. Start with a one word family first (we recommend the following order: -at, -am, -ap, -an, and -ad) and break the words by their family. That means, instead of breaking c-a-t or ca-t, split the word by family: c-at.

Build Essential Phonics Skills and Learn Short A Words

1 Always use visuals; it helps students to visualize the concept. Make it accessible for each student; when someone struggles with spelling or identifying the word, they can easily use it as a reference. Classroom posters are effective visual tools for your classroom.

2 Listening skills are important! Make your students listen and identify the vowel sound. Say the word aloud: “Cat.” Ask your students what vowel sound they hear. Go around the room asking for more examples of the short A sound.

3 Naming pictures with sound and word family. Print, cut out and prepare reading flashcards. The short vowel or word family is highlighted in a different color. It makes it easy for a student to identify and isolate the sound (and better remember it in the future).

Show one card and ask students: Does anyone know what letter it has? “It is the letter a. We call this letter a vowel. It makes the ‘aaa’ sound, like cat or apple. We call it short A sound.” Repeat practice, but this time ask your students to identify the word family they hear.

4 Identifying each unique sound. Print, cut out and prepare clip cards (you will need a few clothespins). Pass the clip cards with a short word. Have your students identify the short vowel and clip the clothespin to the corresponding sound.

This activity is great for independent practice. As well, it promotes fine motor skills and makes learning fun and interactive. Move forward and ask your students to identify the word family and attach the clothespins to the equal family.

5 Now, when your students are comfortable identifying the vowel sound, it’s time to practice spelling and writing. At this age, the best approach is to make learning as much hands-on and active as possible. Simple writing and tracing practice can become boring and less effective. Here are a few great hands-on worksheets for your lesson.

6 Finally, it is time to review the short A words and check your student’s progress. You will review your student’s ability to read, spell, and identify the word family. Spelling dictionaries are great! It combines writing practice, coloring, and spelling.

7 After spelling practice, let your students read a short story. Each story combines Dolch pre-primer word list and short A words. Afterward, there are questions about the text. Working on these stories, students learn to read and comprehend the text.

Practice reading fluency skills:

Practice reading comprehension skills:

8 Cut and paste activity is great to sort the word family by a picture or by word. Students can complete one or both versions, and you can combine pictures and words.

You can use these cards to play a memory game as well! Students can match the picture and the word, or picture-picture word-word, depending on your goals (in this case, print the second page two times).

9 Afterward, review the concept. You will see whether your students catch and fix the concept or need a little more practice.

Workbooks that focus on word families with short A sound:

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