Short A Word Families Worksheets

These free short a word families worksheets cover the 6 families -at, -an, -ap, -ag, -ad, -am: word family houses, word wheels, sorts, roll and read, fluency grids and a vowel swap page. A word family is a group of words that share an ending, so a child who can read bat can also read cat and fat.

Short A word families worksheets to print (PDF)

The four printables below are a house, a sort, a roll and read page and a fluency grid. Click a picture for the PDF.

Short A word families list: every word in the worksheets

The short a word families worksheets use 49 words from the 6 families, which become 74 if you turn on blends. The biggest family is -ap with 10 words, and the smallest is -am with 5. Here is every family:

How word families work: onset and rime

Every one-syllable word can be split into an onset, the sound before the vowel, and a rime, the vowel and what follows it. In bat, the onset is b and the rime is -at. A word family is a set of words with the same rime, so only the onset changes. Young children find rimes much easier to hear than single sounds, which is why rhyming comes before reading. The Wikipedia article on the syllable explains onset and rime.

The short a sound is the one in cat: the mouth opens wide and the jaw drops. Short a is the easiest vowel for most children, because the sound is clear and the mouth opens wide.

A well-known analysis of primary-grade reading texts found that a few dozen rimes make up several hundred common words, which is why word families repay the time spent on them. The Common Core expects children to know the sounds of the vowels (RF.K.3.B) and to read regularly spelled one-syllable words (RF.1.3.B); for long vowels it adds the final -e and vowel team patterns (RF.1.3.C).

Where to start with the short a word families

The -at family has 9 words in the houses and wheels: bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, vat. Turn on the blends option to add chat, flat, that, brat, spat.

The -an family has 8 words in the houses and wheels: ban, can, fan, man, pan, ran, tan, van. Turn on the blends option to add plan, scan, than, bran.

The -ap family has 10 words in the houses and wheels: cap, gap, lap, map, nap, rap, sap, tap, yap, zap. Turn on the blends option to add clap, flap, slap, snap, trap, chap, strap.

Start with -at because it makes many everyday words. When a child can read the whole family, move on to -an and then the rest, in this order: at, an, ap, ag, ad and am. The houses can be printed in any order, and you can print a family a second time with the blends turned on.

Short a sentences to read, one for each family

Once children can read the words in a list, they need to meet them in sentences. These sentences use only words from the families on this page, with the family words in bold:

Ask the child to read each sentence, then to underline the family words and say which ones rhyme. For writing practice, ask them to make up their own sentence for each family on the sentence line of the house.

Short a worksheets kindergarten: how to teach 6 families

A simple plan is one family a day, with a different printable each time, and a fluency grid at the end of the week. This is a schedule for the short a word families:

The week of short a word families ends with a fluency grid. The smallest family, -am, has only 5 words and is quick to finish, so print its sort on the same day as -ap, which has 10.

A worked example: the -ap word family worksheet

The biggest of the short a word families is -ap, with 10 words: cap, gap, lap, map, nap, rap, sap, tap, yap, zap. In its house the ending -ap sits on the roof and the words fill the windows. The six boxes underneath already show the ending, and a child writes c, g or l in front of it to build cap, gap or lap.

With blends turned on it also holds clap, flap, slap, snap, trap, chap, strap.

What is in the complete packet

Pages in each printable:

For the 6 short a word families the complete packet has 18 pages: a house and a wheel for each family (12 pages), plus the sorts, roll and read, fluency grid and vowel swap pages that are shared. The families have 49 words in the houses and wheels, and 25 more with blends turned on.

Short a word families: frequently asked questions

Which short a family should I teach first?

Start with the -at word family: it has 9 words, and the most familiar ones, such as cat, hat and mat, are words a five-year-old already says.

How many words are in the short a word families?

There are 49 words in the 6 families, and 25 more if you turn on blends. The biggest family is -ap with 10 words, and the smallest is -am with 5.

Which words look like short a words but are not?

The -all family (ball, call, tall) uses the same letter a but says “aw”, and was and want are said with a different vowel. Teach them as their own words and keep them out of the short a families.

Which short a words are easy to mix up with other vowels?

The vowel swap page uses pairs such as cat and cot, man and men, bad and bed, bag and big and cap and cup. Children who write “bed” for “bad” are usually hearing the vowel right but need to look at the middle letter.

How do I add blend words to the short a families?

Turn on “Add blend and digraph words” in the generator. On this page -at adds chat, flat, that; -an adds plan, scan, than. Words with blends go into the houses, wheels and sorts as extra rows.

More word family worksheets

• Short vowel review worksheets with mixed vowels
• Long vowel word families worksheets
• Pre-primer sight words worksheets and 1st grade spelling words