CVC Word Flashcards with Pictures – Free Printables
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words are essential for teaching children to decode, or read, unknown words. These printable CVC word flashcards feature colorful imagery and easy to identify middle vowel sounds for practice. Print the free flashcards to use for self practice or as a fun matching game!
Printable Flashcards
Once children begin to recognize a few letters and memorize their sounds, you should begin teaching and modeling reading CVC words.
Children should begin practicing this skill with assistance and then move to independent practice. This is a foundational reading skill children should master quickly using these short, easily read words!
And these free printable CVC word flashcards are excellent practice for students learning to read! They can be used a few ways- as flashcards for self-practice reading simple word, OR as a fun matching game!
The flashcards are separated by middle letter sound and feature bright, colorful, and easy to identify images.
👉 Print these worksheets on single sides and have children decode the words and match them to the corresponding pictures.
👉 Print them double sided to use as traditional flashcards. Students can practice independently or can be quizzed by a peer or adult.
Tip: Laminate or print on card stock for extra durability!
To dig deeper, print only the pictures at first and have children spell the words on blank flashcards. Children can match them up or glue them next to each other on a separate piece of paper. Then, provide them with the word cards and have them ‘match’ them up to see how they did!
Age Group: These flashcards are most appropriate for young readers ages 4-6, usually in pre-K, Kindergarten, or first grade.
You may also like: CVC Puzzles, CH Digraph Worksheets.
Teaching CVC Words
CVC words should be used to introduce the important skill of blending individual phonemes to read words. This is a super important phonological awareness skill.
You can begin with nonsense words (use whatever consonant and vowel sounds children know already) and integrate real words too! Children should say each individual sound (segment), then stretch the sounds together (continuously blend), and then quickly read the word.
👉 Example: /m/ /a/ /t/ –> mmmmmm aaaaaaaa t –> mat.
Since vowels sounds are usually very difficult for students to master (especially the tricky /e/ and /i/), I like to make sure to teach one or two vowel sounds at a time until students have them mastered.
To reinforce the vowel sounds I’ve taught, I use only CVC words with those specific vowels. That is why I’ve designed and organized these free CVC worksheets by vowel sound.
So, if you’ve only taught letters ‘o’ and ‘a,’ you can easily use only words with those sounds. As you teach additional vowel sounds, you can then print and add more flashcards for targeted practice.
Once all vowel sounds are taught, children can use all the flashcards for sorting practice! Since they are all CVC words, the way to sort these would be by vowel sounds. After they sort and read the words, they can match the words to the corresponding pictures.
👉 It’s important to note that all CVC words are closed syllables, meaning that the vowels will say the short sound because they are ‘closed in’ by a consonant.
Using nonsense words allows the teacher to see if students are mastering their letters and sounds because there is no room for guessing.
Example: If you present children with the nonsense word ‘tez,’ and they pronounce it ‘tease,’ then you know that they don’t recognize closed syllables since they aren’t applying the short sound of e. This would be something you would explicitly re-teach, model, and practice together.
More CVC Resources
Download & Print
This resource has 40 flashcards with practice CVC words, 8 for each short vowel.
- Short e: hen, web, bed, jet, net, pen, wet, pet.
- Short a: ham, fan, map, van, cat, can, nap, hat.
- Short i: zip, pig, rib, fin, sit, dig, pin, six.
- Short o: mop, pot, bot, box, cop, log, fox, fog.
- Short u: pup, rug, bug, cut, sun, tub, nut, mug.
DOWNLOAD TERMS: All of our resources and printables are designed for personal use only in homes and classrooms. Each teacher must download his or her own copy. You may not: Save our files to a shared drive, reproduce our resources on the web, or make photocopies for anyone besides your own students. To share with others, please use the social share links provided or distribute the link to the blog post so others can download their own copies. Your support in this allows us to keep making free resources for everyone! Please see our Creative Credits page for information about the licensed clipart we use. If you have any questions or concerns regarding our terms, please email us. Thank you!
This is wonderful. Thank you so much for the freebies!!!
Thank you for sharing. Much appreciated.
You are very welcome!
-Katie and Laura
My kids LOVE this!! Fantastic game for practicing cvc blending!
Treva,
So glad your kiddos are liking this resource!
Katie and Laura
Hi, just what I needed to make a short vowel book for one of my group to support reading.
Thanks
Cheryl,
We are so pleased to hear that you are using our materials to help support your students in their learning!
Katie and Laura
From where we can download these cvc flash cards
Sana,
You’ll find the download buttons at the very bottom of the post! They will download as a free pdf document. Best of luck using these!
Katie and Laura
Thanks for the information. I have a three year old that I am completely on the fence about sending to school.
Irma,
We know schooling options can be such a hard decision for parents. We’ve done private, homeschool, and public school. If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s just to take it one year at a time and be flexible if you can. Whatever you choose, we know your son will be well-prepared having a momma like you helping him learn his letters, sounds, and even CVC words! Keep it up!!!
Katie and Laura
Hello! An amazing site!! So very useful!
I’m having a hard time subscribing! Please help. Thanks
Hi Sue! We’re so glad you’re happy with our content. Enter your information to subscribe, or send us an email and we’ll manually add you on the list!
Great freebies! Thanks!
Morgan,
So glad you like them! We hope you find them useful.
Katie and Laura
These make a whole lot of sense and will be a great learning tool for my little one. Thank you!!
Anson,
We are glad your little one can learn and grow with the help of these flashcards. Thanks for the kind feedback.
Katie and Laura
Thank you so much
I would just like to say thank you so much. I homeschool and finding this site has just been a blessing I love how detailed everything is, it just helps so much I just cant say thank you enough!
Hi Samantha! Thank you so so much for this lovely feedback. We’re thrilled to hear our resources are helpful for you as you homeschool! 🙂 -Katie & Laura
Please I am a preschool teacher and I am ineed of the cvc free printable.
Mavis,
Thanks for coming to our site. If you click on the download link at the bottom of the page, you will be able to download as a PDF file. Let me know if you need additional assistance. I am happy to email them to you, if needed!
I am homeschooling mother I want this cards how to download
Hi Syeda, Simply scroll to the bottom of this or any of our freebie posts, and click on the blue “Download” button. Let us know if you have any follow ups questions! 🙂