Consonant Blends and Digraphs - Minimal Contrast Words Decoding Activity

Get your kindergarten, first, and second-grade students engaged in reading short vowel words with consonant blends and digraphs with this fun phonics Feed Me Cookies activity. Use sets of minimal contrast words to encourage your students to look at every letter when decoding. You’ll have one more way to increase their exposure to high-frequency words and support their development of automatic word recognition.

What are minimal contrast words?

Minimal contrast words are similar, almost the same words. They often differ by one letter or one sound.

What words did I choose?

I chose 109 phonetically regular high-frequency short vowel words with initial and/ or final consonant blends and/ or digraphs from two popular lists, one with 220 words and the other with 1000 words. I also included words with double final consonants. These are the target words.

There are two sets of minimal contrast word pairs/ trios. The first set contrasts single consonants with consonant blends and digraphs. The target high-frequency word is last in each set.

The second set contrasts short vowel sounds. The target high-frequency word is first in each set.

Ways to Use This Decoding Activity

Try this read-and-feed activity:

• with your small instructional, intervention, or resource groups
• when tutoring individual students
• in a center

You’ll want to use it for:

• a phonics warm-up
• an exit activity
• practice
• review

Get ‘Em Engaged

Your students will take turns to:

• Pick a card.
• Read the list of minimal contrast words on the cookie.
• Feed the cookie to the monster.
• Color a cookie on the optional reward strip.

Take a closer look at everything included in this minimal contrast word activity by clicking the green VIEW PREVIEW button above.

Looking for more decoding activities with consonant blends and digraphs? Check out my companion resource, Rapid Word Charts With High-Frequency Words.

Here’s everything you’ll receive in this easy-to-use and engaging phonics activity:

• teacher information
• large word cards
• small word cards
• reward strips (3, 5, or 10 cookies)
• color cookie monster graphic
• 91 color cookies (consonants/ blends & digraphs)
• 86 color cookies (short vowels)
• black/ white cookie monster graphic
• 91 black/ white cookies (consonants/ blends & digraphs)
• 86 black/ white cookies (short vowels)

Check Out More Resources

Phonics

High-Frequency Words

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