Word List
Short A Words
Short a is the sound at the start of ant and apple and in the middle of cat, map and bag. It is the first vowel sound most children learn, and these are the words to learn it on.
- cat
- map
- bag
- fan
- ham
- sad
- hat
- tap
- tag
- van
- jam
- mad
- cab
- rat
- pan
Short a is the sound you hear at the start of ant and apple, and in the middle of cat, map and bag. It is one short sound, not the letter’s name: a child who has learned “A says ay” cannot read cat, because there is no ay in it.
Every word on this page has short a in it, and the words are grouped by where the sound falls: at the start of the word, then in the middle, which is where almost every word a beginner reads puts it.
Which short a words should you start with?
Start with the six under “What are the first short a words to read?”, one a day, and do not rush. They are one word from each of the six short a word families, which means the ending changes every time and your child has to read all three letters rather than swapping the first one.
That is the difference between this page and a word family list. A family holds the vowel and the ending still: cat, hat, mat, and a child can read all three having only really read one. Mixing the endings is harder, and it is the step the CVC words page sends you here for.
What are the short a word families?
Short a has six families, -at, -an, -ap, -ad, -ag and -am, and each one has its own word list and its own worksheets on the CVC words page. Work a family when your child needs the repetition, and come back here when they need to mix them up.
| Family | Words |
|---|---|
| -at | cat, hat, bat, mat, rat, sat |
| -an | can, fan, man, pan, ran, van |
| -ap | cap, map, nap, tap, lap, gap |
| -ad | bad, dad, had, mad, sad, pad |
| -ag | bag, tag, rag, wag |
| -am | ham, jam, ram, yam |
How to practice short a words
Read them, then find them, then write them, in that order. Say the sound before the word: /a/, then cat. Have your child read each word out loud before they write it, so the sheet practices reading rather than copying.
One vowel at a time, in a set order, is the point. That is what the National Reading Panel calls systematic phonics, and the panel found it “significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics” across kindergarten through 6th grade.
Find them in a book. Open anything on the shelf and hunt for three words with short a in the middle. A word found in a real sentence is worth more than a page of words in a column.
There is no word scramble on this page, on purpose. Scrambled, too many short a words spell a second real word (cat and act, map and amp, bag and gab, tap and pat, mad and dam), so the answer key would mark a right answer wrong. The short i and short u lists can carry one; this one cannot.
Short a and long a
Long a says its own name: cap becomes cape, tap becomes tape, man becomes mane. The silent e on the end is what does it, and none of the long ones are on this page.
Silent-e words pairs each short word with its long twin, and short vowel sounds has the short-and-long chart for all five vowels.
Knowing both sounds for the same letter is a kindergarten expectation: Common Core (RF.K.3b) asks children to “associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels”.
Which words start with short a?
Short a at the start of a word is where the sound is easiest to hear, because nothing comes before it. Say ant slowly and the very first thing out of your mouth is the sound this whole page is about.
There are not many of these words, and that is worth knowing. Ant, apple, ax, add, at and an is close to the whole set a young child would recognize. Most short a words your child will read put the sound in the middle, which is the two sections below.
Use these six to teach the sound, then move on. A child who can hear the a in apple can start hunting for it in the middle of cat.
- ant
- apple
- ax
- add
- at
- an
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Printables for Short A at the Start
- Short A at the Start: Word Cards (PDF)6 cards · 1 page
Preview page 1Preview
What are the first short a words to read?
Six words, six different endings, one sound in the middle. Cat, map, bag, fan, ham, sad: the only thing they share is the a, which is exactly what makes them the right six to start on.
This is harder than a word family, and that is the point. In cat, hat and mat your child can read the first one and guess the rest. Here the ending changes every time, so they have to read all three letters. If that is too big a step today, work a family on the CVC words page first and come back.
Do the picture sheets before the writing ones. Naming a picture and counting its sounds asks nothing of reading, so a child who cannot yet read cat can still do the whole sheet. The sound boxes are where the three letters and the three sounds line up for the first time.
- cat
- map
- bag
- fan
- ham
- sad
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Printables for First Short A Words
- First Short A Word Cards (PDF)6 cards · 1 page
Preview page 1Preview
- First Short A Words: Sound Boxes (PDF)6 words · answer key included · 2 pages
Preview page 1Preview
- First Short A Words: Read, Write, Match (PDF)6 words · answer key included · 3 pages
Preview page 1Preview
What are some more short a words?
The same six endings, a different letter in front. Hat, tap, tag, van, jam, mad run through -at, -ap, -ag, -an, -am and -ad in the same order as the section above, so this is review of the endings rather than six new things to learn.
Tap and tag are the pair to slow down on. They differ by their last letter and nothing else, and a child who is guessing from the first two letters will read them as the same word. If that happens, it is not a short a problem: it is a reading-to-the-end problem, and the Read, Trace, Find sheet at the bottom of this page is built for it.
- hat
- tap
- tag
- van
- jam
- mad
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Printables for More Short A Words
- More Short A Word Cards (PDF)6 cards · 1 page
Preview page 1Preview
- More Short A Words: Sound Boxes (PDF)6 words · answer key included · 2 pages
Preview page 1Preview
- More Short A Words: Read, Write, Match (PDF)6 words · answer key included · 3 pages
Preview page 1Preview
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Mixed review: printables for the whole list
Every sheet below is built from the Short A Words above. No account, no email, no watermark. Start at the top and print one at a time. The sheets are in teaching order, and ten minutes on a single sheet is more valuable than working through a stack on autopilot.
- Short A Words: Read, Trace, Find (PDF)3 words · answer key included · 2 pages
Preview page 1Preview
- Short A Words: Handwriting Practice (PDF)15 words · 2 pages
Preview page 1Preview
- Short A Word Ladder (PDF)6 rungs · answer key included · 2 pages
Preview page 1Preview
What comes after short a words?
Where to go next depends on which part your child found hard.
- If hearing the sound was the problem rather than reading the word, the middle-sound work comes first. A child who cannot yet hear the a in cat is not ready to write it. Short vowel sounds has the chart and the five sounds said plainly.
- If short a is solid, the next vowel is short i: short i words. It is the one least confused with short a, which makes it a good second.
- If your child wants more words with this same ending, the families are on CVC words, a section each for -at, -an, -ap, -ad, -ag and -am.
- Once all five vowels are going, short vowel words mixes them, which is the real test.
If your child knows their letter sounds but cannot push them together into a word yet, more worksheets will not fix it. My child knows letter sounds but cannot sound out words covers what to do first.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does short a make?
Short a is the sound at the start of ant and apple and in the middle of cat, map and bag. It is one short sound, and it is not the letter's name: a child who has learned "A says ay" cannot read cat, because there is no ay in it.
What are short a words?
Short a words are words where the letter a makes its short sound: cat, map, bag, fan, ham, sad. Almost all of them put the a in the middle, between two consonants, which is the only position most beginners meet it in.
What is the difference between short a words and short a CVC words?
Every short a CVC word is a short a word, but not the other way round. CVC means the word is exactly consonant-vowel-consonant, three letters and three sounds, like cat. Words such as flag and hand also have short a and are not CVC, because they have two consonants together.
Which short a words should a child learn first?
One word from each word family rather than a whole family at once, so cat, map, bag, fan, ham, sad. A family like cat, hat, mat can be read by changing only the first letter, so mixing the endings is what proves your child is reading all three.
What is the difference between short a and long a?
A long a says the letter's own name. Cap has short a and cape has long a, and the silent e on the end is what changes it. Tap becomes tape, and man becomes mane.
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