1. Learning to Read…
And it’s many hues of development!
Understanding Word Family Instruction to
Help Your Child Learn to Read

2. Parent’s Module 1
Lesson Outline
• What skills do students need to
have prior to learning word
families?
• What are Onsets and Rimes?
• Rhyme vs Rime?
• What is Word Family Instruction

3. What skills do students need to have prior
to learning word families?
Walton & Walton
• Extensive research with 92 Canadian Kindergartners
• Studied the effects of rime instruction on student’s
reading skills over the course of three phases of
experimental studies
“letter–sound skills are consistently found to be strong
predictors of success in beginning reading, and most
but not all research has found significant links between
rhyming and success in reading” (p 101)

4. What skills do students need to have
prior to learning word families?
• This means being able to look at a letter,
automatically identify the letter’s name, and the
sound it makes
• Students also need to be able to:
• Blend or squoosh sounds together to make new sounds or
words
• Segment, or pull sounds in words apart
(Hines, 2009; Walton & Walton, 2002)

5. What is Word Family Instruction?
Now that you know some of the basic behind
reading, let’s look at word families.
• In order to understand word family instruction,
one must first know the difference between
onsets and rimes.
• Onset is the first consonant(s) of a word (d)
• Rime is the first vowel and all the consonants
and/or vowels that follow the onset (og)
dog

6. What is Word Family Instruction?
Time to practice what you have learned so far!
• Please get a piece of paper.
• Fold it in thirds vertically.
• Label the far left column WORD.
• Label the middle column ONSET.
• Label the far right column RIME.

7. What is Word Family Instruction?
Here are a list of some words. On your paper, write
the word and it’s onset and rime parts.
• Cow • Boat
• Pen • Shatter
• Chip • Flower

8. What is Word Family Instruction?
Check your answers!
The onsets are in black and the rimes in red.
• Cow • Boat
• Pen • Shatter
• Chip • Flower
Beginning blends, like ‘’ch’, ‘sh’ and ‘fl’ can be a little tricky
when identifying onsets. They need to stick together!

9. What is the difference between
RHYME and RIME?
• RIME, as you now know is the is the first vowel and
all the consonants and/or vowels that follow the
onset
• RHYME is what happens when two or more words
have the same ending rime spelling pattern or sound
This is the ‘at’ rime. All of
these words rhyme!

10. What is the difference between
RHYME and RIME?
• It is possible for words to RHYME, but not have the
same RIME spelling pattern.
Shot Caught
A cold I’ve caught,
Doc gave me a shot!
• Caught and shot RHYME, because they have the
same ending sounds. They do not have the same
RIME!

11. What is the difference between
RHYME and RIME?
Time to practice RHYME and RIME!
• Turn your practice paper over.
• Label the far left column WORDS.
• Label the middle column RIME.
• Label the far right column RHYME.

12. What is Word Family Instruction?
This time, you will be given sets of words.
• If the words have the same RIME, put a .
• If the words RHYME, put a .

13. What is the difference between
RHYME and RIME?
Here are the sets of words for you to practice!
• skate, plate • flute, shoot
• while, smile • then, den
• bat, matte • goat, wrote

14. What is the difference between
RHYME and RIME?
Check your answers!
Words Rime Rhyme
skate, plate
while, smile
bat, matte
flute, shoot
then, den
goat, wrote

15. What is Word Family Instruction?
Now let’s look at word family instruction.
Word family instruction, or “onset-rime instruction” as
referred to by Hines (2009) is
“the analysis and substitution of word parts from
known words to unknown ones at the onset-rime
level” (p.21)
Using word families, if a child can read dog, he/she can
learn to read log and frog and smog too!

16. What is Word Family Instruction?
Now let’s look at word family instruction.
• Lessons are broken down into word families or rimes.
• Lessons typically begin with a short vowel and all the
different rimes with that vowel.
• An, at, am, ap, ack
• En, et, ell
• Etc.
• After all the short vowel rimes have been taught,
lessons typically move to the long vowels.
• Ake, ape, ame
• Ike, ile, ive
• Etc.
(Bear & Templeton, 1998; Invernizzi, Abouzeid and Gill,1994)

17. What is Word Family Instruction?
Benefits of Word Family Instruction
• Breaking words in to chunks, rather than each
individual sound
• Blending is easier with onsets and rimes than it
is blending each isolated sound
• Less emphasis placed on differentiating short
and long vowel sounds
• Successful strategy for beginning and/or
struggling readers
(Hines, 2009; Walton & Walton, 2002; Whitaker, Harvey, Hassell, Linder, &Tutterow,2006)