Have you ever had your students make words with their word families? You know, it’s –ack family week and they make the words: pack, tack, stack, rack. I was doing this with my kids once, and realized that they had no idea what a tack or a rack was. Granted, I work with a high ELL population, but I realized it didn’t do them much good 
to be able to sound out a word and have no idea what it meant! My solution for this was to create a Making Words Center – where students not only make a word, but they match the picture to the word, increasing the chance that they will understand all these words they are making. This is especially important for my English Language Learners, but it really benefits everyone! You can get the Making Words Center for the ACK family for free on Teachers Pay Teachers or at Raki’s Shop.
