Short a Word Families

Read and build words in the -at, -an, and -ap families.

A word family is a group of words that share the same ending chunk. If you can read the chunk, you can read the whole family by changing the first letter. The chunk -at gives us 'cat', 'hat', 'sat', and 'flat'.

The chunk -an gives 'can', 'fan', 'ran', and 'plan'. The chunk -ap gives 'cap', 'map', 'nap', and 'snap'. All of them use short a, as in apple. Read this silly sentence: 'The fat cat sat on a map for a nap. ' Five words from two families!

• 1A word family shares an ending chunk.
• 2Change the first sound to make a new word.
• 3-at, -an, -ap all use short a.