-An Word Family Worksheets: 7 FREE Printables!

Teaching Info

The term “word families” refers to groups of words that share the same rime—meaning they have the same vowel sound and ending letter pattern—even though they begin with different sounds.

CVC word families are some of the first words that young readers learn to decode, making them a crucial step in early reading development.

Learning word families helps to build confidence and opens up many words at once. Because if a student can read -an, they can also read can, ban, man, fan, and much more!

And as they learn and master additional phonics skills, they’ll soon be able to read more advanced words like than, plan, chant, and brand.

Use the 7 free -an worksheets below to help students master isolating, decoding, and spelling -an word family words.

All About the -AN Sound

We begin phonics instruction in pre-k and kindergarten by teaching students that the letter A represents the short sound – /ă/. You can clearly hear this sound at the beginning of words like at and apple or in the middle of words like cat and map.

We call this /ă/ sound a pure letter sound, and we explicitly teach students that when they see the letter A, their mouth should say /ă/.

👂🏽Now listen for the vowel sound you hear in words like man, pan, ran, and plan, rang, and sang. Can you hear how the sound of the letter A changes?

In -an, -am, and -ang words, the vowel does not represent the pure sound. It represents nasalized a, also known as whiny a.

➡️ The nasalized a sound occurs when short a is followed by nasal sounds /m/, /n/, or /ng/. This happens naturally in English because air flows through your nose in order to make those sounds.

Important: Some teach -an as a glued sound. Others refer to this as a ‘Whiny A.’ You can see why we call it ‘whiny’ when you isolate the vowel sound in words and hear how just how whiny it is!

No matter how you teach this, it’s important that kids understand why the vowel sound shifts and becomes nasally.

-Am or -An? Word Family Word Sorts

📃 This worksheet is perfect for students who have learned the whiny a sound and need practice applying it in -an and -am words!

👀 They must use their visual discrimination skills to notice the difference between the final consonant letter – is it an m or n? Then, they’ll use their decoding skills to read the words accurately, sorting them into the correct column.

✅ After completing the activity, kids should check their work by reading the words aloud and ask themselves two questions: 1. Do the words look alike at the end? 2. Do the words sound alike (or rhyme) at the end?

📐Extension Idea: Challenge kids to write simple sentences using the words.

I Spy -An Words

📃 Using this worksheet, students must use their listening skills to discern if a picture includes the target sound -an. Teachers should read the words out loud, and students should circle and color any pictures that end in -an.

The words are: can, pan, man, ran, van, fan, and ban.

💡Extension Idea: Provide students with sound boxes and have them spell the words with the -an sounds.

-An Word Family Complete the Sentences

This fill-in-the-blank worksheet is great practice for helping students use -an word family words in real life. They hear the word in content and connect meaning with the word.

While most words included are decodable, some are not. Teachers should read the sentences out loud, leaving the blank word out. Kids must choose a word from the word bank, figuring out which one makes sense to complete the sentence.

The sentences are:

• I ran up the hill.
• I put on the fan when it is hot.
• The man has a big cowboy hat.
• can you get your homework done fast?
• The pan must got hot to cook the egg.
• If you sit in the sun, you may get tan.
• Get in the van and I will drive to school.
• The teacher will ban hats and gum in class.

-An Word Family Roll & Read for Real or Nonsense Words

Students absolutely love this one! Students roll a dice, choose a word from the corresponding column, and read it out loud.

They’ll then need to decide if it’s a real word or a nonsense word, and circle either the thumbs up or thumbs down.

They keep going until they’ve read all 12 words!

-An Word Scrambles

Students unscramble the letters to create a real word in the -an word family. This activity helps them to notice patterns in words, including words that are part of the -an word family.

Once they figure out the order of the letters, they’ll write the word on the lines. The words are: tan, man, Jan, pan, fan, ran.

➕ Extension Idea: Have students come up with a sentence using each word and say it out loud to a partner or to the class.

-An Word Family Word Sliders

Students will read words in the -an word family while practicing connected phonation. They’ll use their finger to touch the dots, sliding along the dotted line from left to right, as they blend the phonemes out loud and read the word.

Two options: There are a few fun ways to use this! Keep it as a one-page worksheet or cut out the squares, hole punch the edges, and make a fun book!

🤟🏼 For more blending practice, check out our blending sounds bundle.