What is a phonics Word Wheel? It’s simply two rotating cards that allow the reader to cover and hide parts of a word and to share these word parts with other words. For example, if the card above has the beginning sound ‘d’, then the card below will have middle and ending sounds for simple words that start with the ‘d’ sound like ‘og’ for ‘dog’ and ‘ip’ for ‘dip’. This is a fun way of using a reading drill.

Word wheels can be created to focus on short vowels, long vowels, the silent/magic ‘e’ and blends as the beginning or ending sounds.

I taught a remedial reading class last year, but could not find any word wheels that focussed on a specific skill. So I created these CVC Word Wheels for my little readers which focuses on the beginning sounds of the three-letter CVC words. It is okay if students just want to play with them at first, they are usually intrigued by the way the word wheels spin. It is through this ‘play’ that the students will understand how the wheels work and see that the letter at the top gives the starting sound for all of the word parts below and this way, learning becomes fun! Here’s a free sample!

My Whirly Word Wheels are available for purchase as instant digital downloads at TPT.

See related phonics blog posts here: 

GH and GHT Phonics Word Wheels

The three types of CH words

Hands-on spelling and reading activities

Free CH Word Wheel with foldable worksheet

Silent E Word Wheels

Phonics activities and crafts