CVC Blend & Segment Center

Develop phonics skills with this Elkonin-style CVC mat, designed to help students segment, blend, and connect sounds to letters. This hands-on approach makes phonemic awareness concrete and interactive.

How it works:

• Place a CVC picture card at the top of the mat.
• Use counters or small manipulatives—one for each phoneme in the word.
• Touch the dots under each manipulative and say the sounds aloud.
• Drag a finger along the arrow from left to right to blend the word.
• Identify the graphemes for each sound and place the corresponding letter manipulatives in the boxes.
• Touch the dots under the letters and blend the word again.

What’s included:

• Printable mat template (reuse as needed)
• CVC word sheets for each short vowel

Benefits for students:

• Strengthens phoneme segmentation and blending
• Connects sounds to letters
• Supports early reading and spelling development

This mat is ideal for literacy centers, small groups, or individual practice, giving learners a tactile, step-by-step way to build strong decoding skills.

If you would like to see this and other resources in action, please check us out on Instagram at @projectbasedprimary