We created these “sweet” little word family activities just for Valentine’s Day! Teaching word families is often one of the first steps in teaching students to decode words. Introducing word families helps students recognize “chunks” within a word. Working with word families also builds phonemic awareness.  When we teach these word chunks (aka as “phonograms”) we group words that have a similar pattern allowing students to read the words quickly by learning the pattern within the word. Because these words have a predictable pattern, often differing by only one sound, we say they all belong to a “word family”. The words within a word family rhyme as they have the same ending. Students just love word family activities! Once they