Background

Word families, or rimes, consist of a vowel and final consonant(s) that produce a pattern of sound that rhymes. The use of word-families provides students with an opportunity to analyze the patterns of sounds within words and parts of an entire word (such as rimes--vowel and following consonants, and onsets--consonant(s) preceding the rime). Recognizing word families can assist students with decoding words more fluently.