Word Families
Music Therapy reading and speech videos & songs for special needs individuals.
Goal 1: Clients will read CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.
Goal 2: Clients will verbally produce CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.
Domains: Academics, Speech
Reading is hard. How is it that “ate” and “eight” are spelled so different, but pronounced the same? Why can “bass” be pronounced two different ways – one meaning a four-stringed guitar and one meaning a fish? Learning to read involves a combination of phonics and memorization. These videos focus on phonics, not only to teach the targeted words included, but also to provide a strategy that can be applied to decoding words outside the scope of this project. First, kids learn the names of letters. Then they learn the sounds the letters make. And then they are ready to begin combining these sounds to make words.
Word Families targets four words per video. Each word ends with the same short vowel + consonant sound, only the first letter changes. Several factors went into choosing the words. I wanted to use all five short vowel sounds. For variety, I wanted each word family to end with a different consonant. For variety, I also wanted as many different initial consonants as possible. I wanted fairly common words (as much as possible given the previous restrictions). And I wanted words that could be easily represented with a picture… so while “had” is a common word, it difficult to visualize.
The words contained in the five songs/videos are:
1. -ad : bad, dad, mad, sad
2. -en : hen, men, pen, ten
3. -it : bit, hit, lit, sit
4. -op : hop, mop, pop, top
5. -ug : bug, hug, jug, rug
The chorus of the song explains the concept of word families. The verses highlight the initial consonant, the ending vowel-consonant pair, and then the entire word. The first verse provides a verbal model and the second verse is the child’s opportunity to verbally respond.
The initial intention of the song was to address reading. However, as an added bonus, I’ve found it to be extremely helpful in addressing speech issues. I have a number of clients who are successful at articulating letter sounds in isolation, but struggle with combining these letter sounds to form words. The structure and repetition provided in the song has proved helpful.
Printed visuals are also provided as an alternative to the video visuals. These can be used in conjunction with the mp3s or without music to allow more processing time or to check for generalization of the skill.
Of course, there are many more word families than just these five. With the purchase of the complete package you will also receive a fill-in-the-blank version of the song to work on other word families of your choosing. If the individual you are working with has progressed beyond CVC words, there is rhythmic space in the song to introduce consonant blends.
T-H says “th” … I-N-K says “ink” … put em both together … “th” … “ink” … “th” … “ink” … “think!”
Download includes:
- 5 Word Families videos [mp4 video files]
- -ad
- -en
- -it
- -op
- -ug
- 6 Word Families songs [mp3 audio files]
- -ad
- -en
- -it
- -op
- -ug
- fill-in-the-blank
- 5 Word Families Lyrics [PDF]
- -ad
- -en
- -it
- -op
- -ug
- 5 Word Families Lyrics & Chords [PDF]
- -ad
- -en
- -it
- -op
- -ug
- 5 Pages of Printable Visuals [PDF]
- -ad
- -en
- -it
- -op
- -ug