
How many word families are there?
What is word family?
Why do we need word families?
About this website

What are the 37 word families?
There are many combinations of word families, these are 37 of the most common: Ack, ake, all, ale, an, ame, ain, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ight, ill, ide, ill, in, ine, ing, ip, ink, it, ock, op, oke, ore, ot, uck, ug, unk, and ump.
How many CVC word families are there?
There are 10 word lists of CVC word families.
How many word families should I know?
Typically native speakers know 15,000 to 20,000 word families - or lemmas - in their first language. Word family/lemma is a root word and all its inflections, for example: run, running, ran; blue, bluer, bluest, blueish, etc.
How many most common word families do we have in English?
Most Common Word Families According to researchers Wylie and Durrel, there are 37 common word families: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk.
What order should I teach word families?
There is no particular order to the word families that one chooses; however, short a families make a good starting point because they are so common in the reading materials of young children, and studies of children's invented spellings show that this is the short vowel least likely to be confused (Henderson, 1985).
What is CVC word family?
CVC words are consonant-vowel-consonant words. They are words like cat, zip, rug, and pen. The vowel sound is always short.
What is the average vocabulary size?
about 20,000-35,000 wordsMost adult native test-takers have a vocabulary range of about 20,000-35,000 words. Adult native test-takers learn almost 1 new word a day until middle age.
What is the average vocabulary of a college graduate?
They selected 250 of these words and presented lists of 50 to a total of 20 university graduates, who were native speakers of English and over the age of 22. Students simply had to indicate whether they knew the word. The estimated number of basic words known ranged from 13,200 to 20,700 with an average of 17,200.
How many words does the average English speaker know?
The researchers found that native adult speakers of English understand an average of 20,000 to 30,000 vocabulary words, and native speakers learn about one word a day from ages 16 to 50.
How many words are in the English language 2022?
If we want to talk about how many words there are in English, there are three key numbers to remember: more than a million total words, about 170,000 words in current use, and 20,000-30,000 words used by each individual person.
Which language has most words?
Counting the Words in the DictionaryLanguageWords in the DictionaryEnglish171,476Russian150,000Spanish93,000Chinese85,5683 more rows•Mar 7, 2018
What makes a word family?
Word families are groups of words that have a common feature, pattern or meaning. They usually share a common base or root word, to which different prefixes and suffixes are added.
What are CVC words list?
Short a CVC Word Listsat words. bat, cat, sat, hat, rat, mat, fat, pat, vat. ... ap words. cap, map, nap, lap, gap, rap, sap, tap, yap, zap. ... an words. ban, can, man, fan, pan, ran, van, tan, Dan. ... ad words. bad, dad, lad, had, mad, fad, pad, sad, rad, tad. ... am words. ... ag words. ... ax words. ... ack words.More items...•
Can CVC words be 4 letters?
CVC words don't have to be three-letter words, as the C, the V and the C refer to consonant and vowel sounds (which could be made up of more than one letter) rather than to individual letters of the alphabet.
Can you give 5 examples of CVC words?
Examples of CVC words can include 'new', 'hat', 'cot', 'lit', and 'pit'.
What is the CVC pattern?
C-V-C means consonant-vowel-consonant. A C-V-C word is a three-letter word that follows the spelling pattern of a consonant, then a vowel, and then another consonant. Remember, vowels are the letters A, E, I, O, U (sometimes Y!), and consonants are all the other letters. For example, top. T is a consonant.
Word Families: Definition & Examples - Study.com
Word Families 'Hey, diddle, diddle - The cat and the fiddle,…' is a phrase from a well-known nursery rhyme that uses word families to teach students how to read and spell.
What is a Word Family? | Word Families | Examples - Twinkl
A word family is a group of words that may share a common root word with different prefixes and suffixes in morphology. They're used for teaching spelling. Explore this word family teaching wiki and lots of more exciting resources by creating your very own Twinkl account.
Word family Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
word family: [noun] a group of cognate words especially within a single language.
How many different word families are there?
The National Council of Teachers of English has identified 37 different word families. They are listed below with examples of words that are included in the family. Ack.
What is a word family?
Word families are groups of words that go together. They have similar or common features or patterns. They can occur in the prefix, the suffix, or in the root word itself. They are sometimes referred to as groups or chunks. Word families all have the same combinations of letters somewhere in the word. They frequently appear in poems and rhymes ...
What are some examples of word families?
They frequently appear in poems and rhymes (especially nursery rhymes). For example: “Jack and Jill. Went up the hill, To fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down, And broke his crown. And Jill came tumbling after.”.
Why do we need word families?
Word families help students to learn to read and pronounce English. Because they learn to recognize the “chunks” of words that are in each family, they can make connections to other words. This helps new readers correctly predict how other words will sound.
Why are word families important?
Word families can be an important tool when teaching people to read or speak a language. New readers are able to recognize the word patterns, and teachers help them to understand the combinations and sounds.
How many words can a new reader learn?
By using the 37 common word families, new readers will be able to learn an estimated 500 words.
How many word families are there in the English language?
There are about 100,000-word families in the English language. A native English speaker knows between 10,000 (uneducated) and 20,000 (educated) word families, and Professor Paul Nation found that a person must know 8,000 words to 9,000-word families to enjoy reading a book. Learners of traditional languages found that a person with a vocabulary of 2,500 passive and 2,000 active word families can speak a language fluently.
Are word families phonics?
Effective phonics and word recognition instruction builds steadily on children’s understanding and use of both spoken and written language, and includes the following elements:
What are Word Families?
A word family is a group of letters that are combined to make a specific sound. For example, -ack, -am-, and -at are all word families.
How do sight words and word families work together?
Word families and sight words work together to help children learn how to read. All of these words are high-frequency words, which means that children will see them often. When children can identify them quickly and easily, they can become more persuasive writers.
How many common words are there in the English language?
According to Wylie and Durrell, there are 37 common word families in the English language. In actuality, there are many more than 37, but these are the highest frequency words.
Can kids spell and read words?
Once your child understands how to form these word families into actual words, they will be able to spell and read them!
What are Word Families?
Word families are groups of words with the same ending rime (also called phonogram.) These words are used strategically by educators when teaching children to read because of their predictable and easy-to-distinguish spelling patterns.
Why are word families important?
(This isn’t something that happens often in the English language, by the way.) The consistency of word-families can aid in helping our students in understand how our language and written text are related and guide these fluent speakers to become fluent readers.
How many words can a phonogram decode?
Did you know that when students are comfortable with the 38 most common phonograms (the rime part of the word) they can decode 654 words? Talk about a great tool to provide for our little readers! (You can find a list of those here in Andrew Johnson’s eBook titled 1 0 Essential Instructional Elements for Students with Reading Difficulties .)
What are the two areas you may want to consider before introducing word families?
Two areas you may want to consider (and even formally assess) before introducing word families are Phonological Awareness Skills and Letter/Sound fluency.
How to excite students about family?
To excite your students, use language like, “Wo w! I bet you can already read ALL of these words on the list! Little readers, let me see what you can do!” Pump up your students to anticipate their success so that (when it becomes evident) they feel accomplished and confident.
What skill do you need to introduce word families?
Another skill you will need to consider before introducing word families to your class are your students’ fluency with letters & sounds. If the majority of your students haven’t mastered this concept, they are not ready for word families. Word-family instruction relies on your students being comfortable with blending the onset-and-rime. If they don’t recognize the letter or can’t produce its sound, don’t expect them to blend words.
What to do if your class isn't ready for word family?
Don’t panic! If your class isn’t ready for word-families, don’t fret- just refocus! The only action you should avoid is introducing skills and concepts your students ARE NOT developmentally prepared to learn. If YOU aren’t the hero who gives them success with the preliminary skills first- it isn’t likely they’ll catch up in the future. Find the resources and strategies you need to strengthen their foundation and everything beyond that will fall into place.
Benefits
Word families are important because they help young children recognize and analyze word patterns when they are learning to read. When teaching analytic phonics, teachers use word families to help children understand these patterns and that certain words have the same letter combinations and sounds.
Most Common Word Families
According to researchers Wylie and Durrel, there are 37 common word families: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw, ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk.
How many people are in a family?
A family in the United States consists of 3.15 people on average. Families are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as a group of two or more people residing together related by birth, marriage, or adoption. There are 83.7 million families in the United States. In around 50 million families, there are no children under the age of 18, whereas about seven million have three or more children living in the household. The number of families with no children has increased over the last two decades, whereas large households stayed about the same.
How many children did women have in the 1970s?
This reflects the steady decline of the birth rate in the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s, a woman in the United States had about 2.5 babies on average. In 2020, the birth rate reached 1.9 children per woman.
How many word families are there?
According to the National Council of Teachers of English, there are 37 common word families. Below, we'll show you each word family, as well as example words that belong to each word family. Ready to get phonetic?
What is word family?
What are word families? They are groups of words that have a common feature or pattern. They have the same letter combinations — a similar sound — and they're a wonderful tool for those new to spelling.
Why do we need word families?
Word families help students learn to read, while building their vocabulary. Being able to recognize patterns and common phonetic sounds is the foundation for strong spelling skills. Of course, not every word in the English language can be simply sounded out, but this is an ideal place to start.

Introduction
- Are you struggling to help your child understand how to read? There are many things that you can do to help encourage literacy, one of which includes teaching your child word families. Word families are the grouping of common letters into similar word lists. In short, if your child understands the word family, they’ll be able to understand a list of words with the word family in …
What Are Word Families?
- A word family is a group of letters that are combined to make a specific sound. For example, -ack, -am-, and -at are all word families. The purpose of understanding a word family is the notion that if you can identify one word, you should be able to identify many others with the common word family. So, if your child can sound out “back,” then they should easily be able to sound out “smac…
Examples
- According to Wylie and Durrell, there are 37 common word families in the English language. In actuality, there are many more than 37, but these are the highest frequency words. Many popular nursery rhymes include these 37 word families. They are simple because each letter is pronounced the way it should be. The only time that words are not pronounc...
Tips and Tricks For Teaching Reading
- When beginning to teach your child to read, you will want to blend information from word families and sight words to help your child start identifying words. To do this, pick a list of words that matches their age-level and start practicing those words only. When your child can identify these words in a text, it means that they are beginning to see the patterns and identify those high-freq…
Conclusion
- My daughter loves to build things with Magnatiles. She will grab all of the tiles and construct fantastic castles, homes, and more with the simple building tools. But what happens when she builds a weak base? We all know. It can’t stand, it’s not steady, and it falls. Learning how to read can kind of be similar to building a weak structure. Identifying something as simple as a word fa…