Free printable cvc review phonics worksheets. Five practice activities: decodable passage, word sort, phrasing cards, rapid naming chart, and word search.
A short, decodable story embedding cvc review words. Students read the passage then highlight all the target words.
It was fall. The sun was dim and not hot. Nuts fell on the hill.
Hal had to get the nuts to his den in a log by the time it got cold. He put the nuts in his red bag. But the bag had a rip. The nuts fell out!
His pal Jim ran up to help. Jim could carry just one nut at a time.
"I can fix this," said Hal.
He got down on his back on the nuts. He got up with nuts on all the pins on his back!
Hal jogged to the log. Soon the den was full.
"We did it!" said Jim.
This story is part of Level 1. Get every Level 1 illustrated mini-book in one print-ready file ($14) →
The words this story set practices, in the two groups used by the word sort.
cat, bed, pig, hot, bug, ham, jet, win, mop, cup
zan, ped, gib, lod, tun, bap, reb, vib, dof, rup
Short vowel words to read, match and write, with pictures. Each PDF has its answer key on page 2.






The sheets above are free. The pack is every sheet for short a, i, o, e and u in order, a review set and all the answer keys, ready to print.
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4 ready-to-print PDFs for this story's cvc review words. Each one opens as its own file.

Cut-apart word cards to sort: Real Words or Nonsense Words. Answer key on page 2.
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More picture worksheets: beginning sounds, ending sounds, rhyming and syllables — new pictures every time you print.
A new decodable story with the same cvc review sounds — each comes with its own set of worksheets.
CVC word review is a critical step for kindergarteners, solidifying their understanding of consonant-vowel-consonant patterns after individual short vowel sounds have been introduced. This phase builds automaticity by mixing all five short vowels, which can be tricky as young learners often overgeneralize or confuse similar-sounding vowels like short ‘a’ in “cat” and short ‘u’ in “cup,” or short ‘e’ in “bed” and short ‘i’ in “pig.” Students might also struggle with auditory discrimination, mishearing "hot" as "hut" or "pen" as "pin." The challenge here is not just decoding each word in isolation but quickly differentiating between vowel sounds within a varied set, preventing common confusions and reinforcing the consistent sound-symbol correspondence for each short vowel. Mastering this review phase ensures a strong foundation for more complex phonics patterns. To make the most of these CVC review worksheets, encourage students to sound out each letter in words like "bug" or "dog" before blending. The story "Pip's Lost Bat" provides an excellent decodable passage for applying these skills in context; have students point to and read each CVC word they find. Utilize the word sort activity to help children visually and auditorily group words by their middle vowel sound, such as sorting "fan," "ham," and "bat" under the short 'a' category. Phrasing cards can build fluency by encouraging smooth reading of short CVC phrases, moving beyond word-by-word decoding. Finally, the Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) chart is invaluable for developing quick, effortless recognition of these mixed CVC words, signaling true mastery.
For more early literacy resources, explore our sight word flashcards, tracing worksheets, handwriting worksheets, and coloring pages.