CVC and VC Blending Strips Freebie – Sound-by-Sound Phonics Practice Strips

This VC and CVC Blending Strips Freebie features 120 phonics practice strips designed to strengthen decoding, blending, and phoneme-grapheme mapping skills. Perfect for intervention, small-group instruction, and daily phonics routines, these strips provide a systematic way for students to blend and read words sound by sound.

Each strip uses the powerful green, yellow, red sound mapping system, which helps students visually organize sounds:

• Green = beginning sound

• Yellow = medial vowel sound

• Red = ending sound

Students tap each colored box as they blend:

• Teacher says “cat.”

• Students tap green for /k/, yellow for /a/, red for /t/, then slide across the blending line to read cat as one complete word.

The strips also support encoding. Students can write letters directly into each colored box as they spell words. For example, with “dog,” students write d in green, o in yellow, and g in red — reinforcing sound-to-letter connections.

Ideas for use:
• Use in small groups or intervention for explicit blending practice.
• Add to phonics centers for independent decoding.
• Pair with letter tiles, magnetic letters, or dry-erase markers.
• Use daily as part of a structured literacy lesson or warm-up.
• Incorporate into RTI and foundational skills instruction.

What’s Included:
• 120 VC and CVC blending strips
• Green, yellow, red color-coded sound boxes
• Tracking dots and blending lines for decoding practice
• Opportunities for writing and encoding words
• Ideal for phonics lessons, intervention, or literacy centers