CVC Segmenting Practice
Segment CVC words into individual phonemes using finger-tapping.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Use fingers or taps, one per sound, and make the child do it rather than watching you. The physical marker is what makes an abstract task concrete, and children who segment accurately with fingers usually keep the skill after the fingers stop. Start with words whose sounds are easy to hold — sun, map — and leave the stop-initial ones like cat and top until the routine is established.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentSay the item and wait 5 seconds for the student's answer.Log as correct
- Stretch itSay the word again slowly, stretching the sounds or tapping the syllables.Log as cued
- Two choicesOffer two answers, the right one not always second.Log as cued
- ModelDo it yourself, tapping as you go, then the student does it after you.Log as cued
Adjust it
Use pictures, fewer items, and words with fewer sounds.
Take the pictures away, or move on to deleting a sound from a word.
Matching IEP goal
Given spoken words, Student will segment a word into its sounds in 8 of 10 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than one repetition.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Fourteen words to break apart: map into /m/ /a/ /p/, sun into /s/ /u/ /n/, cat into /c/ /a/ /t/, bus into /b/ /u/ /s/. Segmenting is the other half of the blending pair and the harder one — it is what spelling depends on, because a child who cannot hear three sounds in map has no way to choose three letters.
What to listen for
Listen for the vowel getting lost. Many children segment map as /m/ /p/, hearing the consonants and skipping the middle, which is the most common error at this stage and the reason the vowel is worth stretching. Watch for syllable segmenting instead of phoneme segmenting — a child who taps once for cat is hearing a syllable, which is a real skill and an earlier one.
Carrying it home
Ask the child to say a word in slow motion, sound by sound. Doing it with their name first usually gets a laugh and makes the idea clear, and after that any word in the room will do — cup, hat, bed. It needs no materials and no preparation.
What's in this activity
- map → /m/ /a/ /p/
- sun → /s/ /u/ /n/
- cat → /c/ /a/ /t/
- dog → /d/ /o/ /g/
- pig → /p/ /i/ /g/
- bed → /b/ /e/ /d/
- hot → /h/ /o/ /t/
- run → /r/ /u/ /n/
- leg → /l/ /e/ /g/
- top → /t/ /o/ /p/
- cup → /c/ /u/ /p/
- net → /n/ /e/ /t/
- bus → /b/ /u/ /s/
- mop → /m/ /o/ /p/
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten and first grade, alongside blending.
- Do I need an account?
- No, it plays free in the browser.
- Which comes first, blending or segmenting?
- Blending is usually easier and comes first. Segmenting is harder and matters more for spelling, so both are worth practising rather than one at a time.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.