Five pages of word ladders, two ladders a page. Each ladder starts with a word at the bottom, such as cup. Between the rungs, two letter tiles say what to change: p to b turns cup into cub, then u to o makes cob. Children write each new word in the boxes, a letter a box, and read it as they climb. The ladders have four rungs on the first pages and six by the last, and the first step of each page is done as an example.
Model one ladder on the board: read the word, cover the letter that changes, say the new sound, and read the new word. Ask children to say each word aloud before they write it. Word ladders make a good warm-up or a word work center after a short vowel lesson.
Climb a ladder together: your child reads the word, you point to the tile, and they say the new word before writing it. Make up a ladder of your own with magnetic letters.
Word ladders made of three-letter short vowel words, from sit to six to fix. Children climb each ladder from the bottom, changing one letter a step as the letter tiles show.
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