Free Printable CVC Word I Spy Worksheets

These free printable short vowel CVC word I Spy pages are fun for pre-k and kindergarten students who are working on CVC sight words. Each page features 12 CVC words and an image bank to find and color the appropriate short vowel words. There are five pages and images are grouped according to the middle vowel - a, e, i, o, or u. I hope your little learner enjoys!

A preview of five pages of CVC word I Spy page. Each page has 12 short vowel CVC words and images to color.

Looking for more literacy activities? Find more cvc word activities below:

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Table of Contents

What are CVC words?

CVC words are short, three letter words spelled in a consonant, vowel, consonant pattern. They are usually among the first words that a child learns to sound out and recognize as sight words.

CVC words are commonly used to teach reading, like in the popular BOB Books series. BOB Books are empowering for young learners because they can read the entire book with just a few letters. The stories seem simple to adults, but kids are so proud when they read the whole book! My daughter loves her Series 1 Bob Books.

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A hand holding the blue box from the BOB Books beginning reader series

These I Spy pages feature short vowel CVC words. Short vowel sounds are more common in English than long vowels. That's why many parents and educators teach them first. Even if you don't know the term, you're probably already familiar with short vowel sounds. They're the sound in common words like cat, hat, sat, and pat.

Long vowel sounds are the vowels that "say their name." The "a" in both say and name are long vowel sounds. "Cape" is another example of a word with a long a sound. We are not using long a words in today's worksheets - only short a CVC words.

Short vowels can be especially difficult for English Language Learners because short vowels aren't really used in romance languages like Spanish and French. (My Spanish-speaking father-in-law says English is very confusing because of the different vowel sounds.)

Materials needed for CVC I Spy worksheets

It's easy to print and use these short a CVC I Spy pages with your child or students. The PDFs can also be used on a tablet with a note-taking app or with the markup feature. Each page has 12 words with their matching images. There are also a handful of "distractor" images in the image bank area.

To make the worksheets reusable, slide each printed page into a secure page protector or dry erase pocket. We like heavy duty, "secure" page protectors because they're easy to organize in a 3-ring binder and they have a flap to keep the pages from accidentally sliding out.

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Instead of using a dry erase marker, we like to use use Stabilo Woody 3 in 1 pencils. They don't have ink so they don't smell and they're easy to wash off. They do cost more than dry erase markers, but they're totally worth it when the pencil washes right off of something (like the wall in your rented home...) They also color and write really well on page protectors and laminated pages. Stop by this post with dinosaur coloring pages to see them in use.

two hands holding a red box for Stabilo woody colored pencils over a partially colored dinosaur coloring page

Free printable short vowel CVC word I Spy worksheets download area

These short a CVC worksheets are available for personal and single classroom use. You are not licensed to redistribute the files to other parents/teachers for use with their children/students. Instead, please refer them to this page so they can download their own copy.

If you agree to this license, you may click below:

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Text "click here to download your free printables" (CVC I Spy pages)

I hope you and your little learner enjoy these free short vowel CVC word worksheets! Make sure to check back again soon for additional CVC word resources. In the meantime, here are more early literacy printables:

Free Printable Literacy Resources

If you want to encourage your child's love of reading, you've come to the right place! Discover the ever-expanding collection of printable emergent readers, alphabet worksheets, sight word worksheets, bookmarks, and more.