With the Word Families exercise, pattern recognition is developed by having the student practice recognizing a similar pattern in a set of words rather than sound them out. A set of words are presented in two colors; a bright color for the pattern (-ake), and a black marker for the part that changes. These need to be done rapidly, and in the set's entirety. I review any errors one more time at the end. This is an excellent exercise to use with students who are sounding every word out, struggle with slower processing speeds, and/or who have weak sight word bases.