Build CVC Words One Letter at a Time

Some of the first words your students will learn to spell are three-letter CVC (consonant–vowel–consonant) words. 

But first, they have to know how to blend and segment onsets and rimes. And that’s what they’ll do in our interactive CVC words game!

To play, students look at two images on each slide and drag and drop letter tiles into place to spell the words. 

Through this activity, students will demonstrate they can apply grade-level phonics to spell unknown words while working on dexterity and computer skills at the same time!

Scaffolding + Extension Tips 

A team of dedicated, experienced educators created this resource to support your phonological awareness lessons. 

In addition to individual student work time, use this CVC word-building game to enhance learning through guided reading groups, whole class lessons, or remote learning assignments. 

If you have a mixture of above and below-level learners and ELL/ESL students, we have a few suggestions for keeping readers on track with these concepts: 

🆘 Support Struggling Students

Give students mini whiteboards and dry-erase markers to help them sound out and write each word in Elkonin boxes before moving tiles.

Allow students to use a picture/sound board to identify the sounds needed for different letters of the alphabet.

Embed an audio file on each slide with a reader segmenting each word into three sounds so that students can listen to the segmentation.

➕ Challenge Fast Finishers

Encourage students to use different letters as onsets to find new CVC words, allowing them to practice segmenting and blending while also identifying common rimes.  

🧑‍🏫 Class Activity

Project the slides onto a screen and work through them as a class by having students record their answers in their notebooks or mini whiteboards. 

Easily Prepare This Resource for Your Students

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the PowerPoint, Google Slides, or PDF versions of this resource. 

Assign this interactive activity in Google Classroom. Please be sure to open in Edit mode, not presentation mode. Students click/drag/drop letter tiles to build words based on the picture stimulus.

Become a master of spelling time fun with these activities and teaching resources: 

teaching resource Beginning Sounds Sorting Activity Practice identifying beginning sounds of words by sorting this set of 24 picture cards. teaching resource Letter Sound Knowledge Activity Cards Practice identifying and writing the beginning sounds of words with this set of 28 task cards with your students.