CV, VC, CVC, and CVCV Words: Speech Therapy Materials

Children who are learning to speak or learning to read can benefit from practicing with shorter words first, such as:

  • Consonant-Vowel (CV) Words
  • Vowel-Consonant (VC) Words
  • Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) Words
  • Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Vowel (CVCV) Words

This page contains lists of CV, VC, CVC, and CVCV words and explains how to use those words in speech therapy to help a child learn to speak and communicate their basic wants and needs.

CV, VC, CVC Words for Functional Communication Curriculum

First Words Curriculum for Speech Therapy

A structured program for teaching CV, VC, CVC words to help children communicate their basic wants and needs. (Great for Apraxia!)

How and Why to Use CV, VC, CVC, and CVCV Words in Speech Therapy:

When working with a child who is not able to speak long words, we can begin improving their speech by teaching them to produce sounds in CV, VC, CVC, and CVCV words.

These are short words that combine just a few vowels and consonants together in a way that make those words easier to say.

For example, “eat” is an example of a “vowel-consonant” word because when you say it, you only say the “ee” sound and the /t/ sound.

All of the words on this page are specifically for use in speech sound therapy, so the combinations of consonants and vowels will be based on how the word sounds, not how it is spelled.

Consonant-Vowel (CV) Words List:

  • me
  • key
  • knee
  • shoe
  • no
  • cow
  • boy
  • bee
  • paw
  • saw
  • toe
  • tie
  • you
  • bow
  • hay
  • pie
  • go

Vowel-Consonant (VC) Word List:

  • up
  • arm
  • eat
  • egg
  • ice
  • out

Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) Word List:

  • moon
  • hat
  • goose
  • fan
  • mouse
  • coat
  • comb
  • cup
  • dice
  • boot
  • bus
  • cake
  • cat
  • bed
  • tape
  • bike
  • book
  • wave
  • fish
  • five
  • mouth
  • dog
  • duck
  • face
  • foot
  • leaf
  • leg
  • nose
  • light
  • hose
  • kite
  • knife
  • lake
  • gas
  • gum
  • white
  • house
  • sock
  • pig
  • nine
  • food
  • lime
  • one
  • soap
  • phone

Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Vowel (CVCV) Word List:

  • baby
  • bunny
  • taco
  • coffee
  • cookie
  • heavy
  • hammer
  • hippo
  • honey
  • ladder
  • lady
  • lego
  • yo-yo
  • money
  • over
  • paper
  • penny
  • pillow
  • puppy
  • pony

Who Benefits from Using CV, VC, CVC Words in Speech Therapy?

The children who would benefit most from using these decks of cards are children who have multiple speech errors and have difficulty putting together simple words such as these.

For example, children with apraxia of speech, autism, Down Syndrome, and severe phonological processes are all good fits for these cards as long as they are still working on putting together sounds to form simple words.

If the child is difficult to understand and you’re not sure why, these cards are a good place to start. You can always move to more difficult words later when the child is ready.

How to Use CV, VC, CVC, CVCV Words in Speech Therapy:

functional communication curriculum: using CV, VC, CVC Words to Teaching Children to Talk

Click Here to Start your Free Trial and Access the First Words Curriculum

  1. Download the No-Prep Curriculum Above: Start your free trial to access our CV, VC, CVC Words Curriculum
  2. Select a Page: Each page features different CV, VC, or CVC Words. Choose one to start that you think the child will be most interested in.
  3. Model the Words: Model the words using the cues provided on the page
  4. Practice: Use the play activities provided on each page to work those words into fun, interactive activities. Use the strategies provided to encourage the child to imitate you.

How to Make CV, VC, CVC Word Practice Fun!

You can entice the child to want to work on speech sounds by making it fun! Try some of these ideas below, or check out our post about how to make speech practice more fun.

  • Play a game while you work
  • Trace something while you work
  • Give them a piece to something after they do a little work (like a piece to a marble run)
  • Hold yoga poses while doing work
  • Perform actions while doing work (can you say your word while hopping on one foot?)
  • Shoot hoops or toss a ball while doing work
  • Plastic coins/treasure in a slot for each word
  • Put the picture cards in mailbox after you say them
  • Find computer or I-Pad games that will work on the skill (like Articulation Station!)
  • Have the child be the teacher and show you how to do it (get it wrong so they can correct you)
  • Hide their words around the house and have them find the words
  • Video tape or audio record them doing their words so they can watch/listen to it later
  • Take pictures of them doing their words and make a book they can show others
  • Tape words to walls in the bathroom, turn off lights, use flashlight to find and say them
  • Put words on wall and shoot them with a dart gun, then say the word you shot
  • Praise them a lot!!
  • End with something they are successful with
  • If it’s too hard, back down to something easier and then mix in the harder ones
  • If you get frustrated, end the session early.
  • Mark their progress and show it to them, like on a chart or graph

If the Child isn’t Able to Imitate These Words:

If the child won’t imitate any words yet, start by having him imitate actions and then work up to having him imitate sounds that you make with the mouth. This might be a better place to start for some children. If he won’t imitate actions, help him do the action after you and then praise him or give him a reinforcement that he really likes, like a favorite toy or food. Use the first phases of this Curriculum to work on improving imitation.

CV, VC, CVC Words for Functional Communication Kit

CV, VC, CVC Words for Functional Communication

Part of the First Words Curriculum

Carrie Clark, Speech-Language Pathologist

About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

Fun Fact: My favorite animal is the sloth.  They are so darn cute and I often feel like my brain and body are moving too much and in those moments, I try hard to channel my inner sloth and slow it down.  I always feel better when I’m focusing on bringing some sloth mode into my day.

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