Word List

CVC Words

CVC words are three-sound words with a short vowel in the middle, like cat, pen and sun, and they are the first words a child can sound out alone. Here they are by vowel and by word family, with free worksheets and no signup.

CVC words, consonant-vowel-consonant, are the first words most children sound out on their own. Each letter makes one sound and the vowel is always short, so a child can read the word with nothing but the letter sounds they already know.

Every CVC word family has its own section below, grouped by short vowel, with its words and free worksheets for just those words. Work through one family at a time, starting with -at. The sheets at the very bottom of the page mix all five vowels, for review once the families are solid.

What is a CVC word family?

A CVC word family is a group of words that share the same short vowel and ending, like the -at in cat, hat and sat. The shared ending is called a rime, and it is what your child hears when two words rhyme. If your child cannot hear that yet, rhyming words is the same endings before the reading, with picture sheets that ask for no letters at all. In a 1970 study of teaching vowels, Richard Wylie and Donald Durrell identified 37 common endings of this kind.

Short vowel	Common CVC word families	Example
a	-at, -an, -ap, -ad, -ag, -am	cat
e	-et, -en, -ed, -eg	bed
i	-ip, -it, -ig, -in, -id	pig
o	-ot, -op, -og, -ob	hop
u	-ug, -ub, -un, -ut, -up, -um	sun

The families in each row run from the one with the most words a young child knows to the one with the fewest, and each one has its own section below, in the same order. If the sound in the first column is what your child is stuck on rather than the words, short vowel sounds covers all five and how each one is made. Some families are thin: only a few words a young child knows end in -ed, -eg, -ob, -ut, -up or -um, and the lists leave them short rather than padding them with words your child has never heard. The two smallest, -up and -um, share a section.

Families are a fast start and not the finish line. A child who only ever swaps the first letter can read -at words without being able to sound out a new one, so mix the families and the vowels once the first sounds are easy, which is the move the six-step method is built around. That is what the short-vowel lists are for: they hold the vowel still and change the ending, so your child has to read all three letters. There is one per vowel (short a, short e, short i, short o, short u) and short vowel words mixes all five.

Word families or sight words?

Word families and sight words do different jobs, and your child needs both. Families teach a pattern that unlocks many words at once. Sight words are the common words your child should know instantly, and far more of them can be sounded out than most people expect: a Reading Rockets analysis by Linda Farrell and colleagues found 138 of the 220 Dolch words are decodable. How to teach sight words covers the rest, and the kindergarten sight words show the split on the 25 most common words.

What comes after CVC words?

After CVC words come letter pairs such as sh and th, then blends such as st and fl, and then silent e. Letter pairs start with words with “th”. Silent e, where cap becomes cape, has its own list of silent-e words that pairs each short word with its long-vowel twin.

How should you use these CVC worksheets?

Use one sheet for a few minutes, and stop while your child is still getting words right. Each family’s sheets are numbered in the order to use them: word cards first, then sound boxes in the bigger families, then sentence completion, where your child reads a short sentence and writes the family word that fits. Have your child read each word out loud before writing it, so the sheet practices reading rather than copying. The sheets are practice rather than teaching; how to teach CVC words is the six-step method they sit inside.

The family sections have no word scramble and no word search, on purpose. Scrambled, many rhyming words spell a different word (tap and pat, pot and top), so the answer key would mark a right answer wrong. The mixed review at the bottom has both, with sixteen words chosen to have one answer each.

If your child knows their letter sounds but cannot push them together into a word yet, a worksheet will not fix that on its own. My child knows letter sounds but cannot sound out words covers what to do first.

What are short a CVC words?

Short a is the sound in the middle of cat and at the start of apple. Its six families are below, from the one with the most words a young child knows to the one with the fewest. Start the page here.

The -at family

Fat and pat are -at words too.

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Printables for -at Family Words

The -an family

Tan is an -an word too.

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Printables for -an Family Words

The -ap family

Zap is an -ap word too.

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Printables for -ap Family Words

The -ad family

Glad ends the same way, with a blend at the front: a word for later.

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Printables for -ad Family Words

The -ag family

Four words a young child knows end in -ag, so this family stays at four.

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Printables for -ag Family Words

The -am family

In some programs -am is taught later, with -an, because the vowel sounds different before m and n.

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Printables for -am Family Words

What are short e CVC words?

Short e is the sound in the middle of bed and at the start of egg. If short e and short i get mixed up, say pairs that differ only in the vowel, such as pen and pin or ten and tin, and ask which is which.

The -et family

Let and set are -et words too.

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Printables for -et Family Words

The -en family

Pen and ten are good words to say beside pin and tin, where only the vowel changes.

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Printables for -en Family Words

The -ed family

This family is small: bed, fed and red are the -ed words a young child knows.

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Printables for -ed Family Words

The -eg family

This family is small too: beg, leg and peg.

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Printables for -eg Family Words

What are short i CVC words?

Short i is the sound in the middle of pig and at the start of itch. Its five families are below, and every one has plenty of words a young child already knows.

The -ip family

Tip is an -ip word too.

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Printables for -ip Family Words

The -it family

Lit is an -it word too.

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Printables for -it Family Words

The -ig family

Jig is an -ig word too: a quick, bouncy dance.

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Printables for -ig Family Words

The -in family

Pin and tin sound almost like pen and ten. Say them side by side and listen for the vowel.

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Printables for -in Family Words

The -id family

Did and hid are words a child meets in almost every story, and both can be sounded out.

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Printables for -id Family Words

What are short o CVC words?

Short o is the sound in the middle of hop and at the start of octopus. Its four families are below.

The -ot family

Cot is an -ot word too. Pot and top use the same three letters in a different order, so read them side by side.

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Printables for -ot Family Words

The -op family

Stop and shop end the same way, with two letters at the front: words for later.

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Printables for -op Family Words

The -og family

Frog ends the same way, with a blend at the front: a word for later.

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Printables for -og Family Words

The -ob family

This family is small: job, rob and sob are the -ob words a young child knows.

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Printables for -ob Family Words

What are short u CVC words?

Short u is the sound in the middle of sun and at the start of up. Its families are below, and the two smallest, -up and -um, share one set of worksheets.

The -ug family

Dug is an -ug word too.

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Printables for -ug Family Words

The -ub family

Club and scrub end the same way, with a blend at the front: words for later.

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Printables for -ub Family Words

The -un family

Four words a young child knows end in -un, so this family stays at four.

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Printables for -un Family Words

The -ut family

This family is small: cut, hut and nut are the -ut words a young child knows.

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Printables for -ut Family Words

The -up and -um families

Cup and pup share the -up ending, and gum and hum share -um. Each family has just two words a young child knows, so they share one set of worksheets.

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Printables for -up and -um Words

What is a CVC word ladder?

A word ladder changes one letter at a time, so each rung is a new word and the one before it is the clue. It is the step past reading a family list: the child has to hear which single sound moved, and then spell it.

Climb a CVC word ladder

A word ladder is a chain of words where each rung changes one letter of the one below it. The picture beside each rung says which word to write, so the child is not guessing: they say the picture, hold the word below it in mind, and work out which single letter has to move.

That last part is what a family list cannot practise. Reading cat, hat and mat down a page teaches that the ending stays put. A ladder takes the ending away as a certainty, so hat becomes hot and then hop, and the only way through is to hear the sound that changed.

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Printables for Mixed CVC Words

Mixed CVC Word Ladder (PDF)24 rungs · answer key included · 6 pages

Can your child hear the odd one out?

This is the listening check. Every section above teaches one ending; here the endings are mixed, and the only way through a row is to hear which two words finish the same way. Say the three words out loud yourself — the printed words are for you.

Which one does not rhyme?

Every section above gives your child one ending at a time. This sheet mixes them up. Three pictures in a row, two of them rhyming, and your child circles the one that does not. It is the only worksheet on this page that checks whether the reading has turned into hearing.

You say the words, not your child. The word is printed under each picture so that you are not guessing at somebody else’s drawing, and so the answer never turns on whether your child calls the picture a cub or a bear. Say all three out loud, then let them circle.

Twelve rows, and they run in vowel order. Short a first, then e, i, o and u, which is the order the families above are taught in. The last row is the hard one: hug and rug rhyme, cub does not, and hearing that takes the very end of the word rather than the middle.

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Printables for Mixed CVC Words

Mixed CVC Words: Odd One Out (PDF)12 rows · answer key included · 4 pages

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Mixed review: printables for the whole list

Every sheet below is built from the CVC Words above. No account, no email, no watermark. Start at the top and print one at a time. The sheets are in teaching order, and ten minutes on a single sheet is more valuable than working through a stack on autopilot.

How do you make your own CVC word list?

A word belongs on a CVC list when it has three sounds, a short vowel in the middle, and a meaning your child already knows. Four rules decide every word on this page:

Three letters, three sounds, one letter for each sound. Consonant, short vowel, consonant.
No x, w, y or r at the end, and no q. Fox is four sounds, because x says /k/ /s/. Cow, day and car have no short vowel at all.
No r-controlled endings. In car and jar the r changes the vowel, so the -ar family comes later.
Only words a five-year-old knows. A child checks their reading against meaning. Reading “keg” or “jot” correctly teaches nothing if the word means nothing to them.

Words like ship and duck are CVC words too, because sh and ck each make one sound, but they have four letters and come a little later. The sh, ch and th words on our kindergarten list are a first step into letter pairs, and words with “th” has both th sounds.

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