1St grade long vowel words

Long Vowel Sounds: Word Lists & Activities

Phonics | Spelling

ByDelilah Orpi

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In this post, I’m breaking down long vowel sounds (or long vowel words) to help you teach them when working with struggling readers and spellers.

Looking for long vowel word lists? Download all 5 of my pdf long vowel sounds word lists in my freebies library by joining my email list below.

What is a long vowel sound?

Long vowel sounds are vowels that are pronounced the same as their name. You’ll often hear teachers say that long vowels “say their name”.

Long vowels are very common but they can be tricky because there are so many spellings for each long vowel sound.

There are actually 4 ways to make long vowel sounds:

Vowels at the end of a syllable make the long sound. For example, in the words me and halo (ha-lo) the vowels are all at the end of a syllable so they make the long sound.
Silent e makes the previous vowel long. The words bike and phone have a silent e at the end that makes the previous vowel long.
Vowel teams can make the long sound. Vowel teams work together to make one sound, and usually, it’s a long vowel sound. For example, boat and meat both have vowel teams that make the long sound.
I or O can be long when they come before two consonants. In words like cold and mind, i and o make a long vowel sound.

Long Vowel Words

Long vowel sound words are words that have vowels that say their name. Below are a few examples:

Long a – baby, cake, rain, day, they, weigh
Long e – me, eve, hear, meet, piece, candy

Long i – silent, bike, light, my
Long o – go, home, toe, boat, snow
Long u – music, mule, pew, feud

Long A Sound

The long a sound can be represented by 8 different spelling patterns:

a – baby
a_e – cake
ai – rain
ay – play
ei – reindeer
eigh – weight
ea – steak
ey – they

Learn more about teaching the long a sound here, and check out my Long A Words Activities & Worksheets for printable activities.

Long E Sound

The long e sound can be represented by 8 different spelling patterns:

e – be
e_e – eve
ee – meet
ea – beach
ei – protein
ie – piece
ey – key
y – candy

For ideas, tips, and tricks when teaching the long e sound, read this post all about teaching the long e vowel sound, and check out my Long E Words Activities & Worksheets for printable activities.

Long I Sound

The long i sound can be represented by 6 different spelling patterns:

i – silent
i_e – shine
ie – pie
igh – light
y – my
y_e – type

You can learn more about teaching the long I sound in this post. And check out my Long I Worksheets set in my shop for printable activities on the long i sound.

Long O Sound

The long o sound can be represented by 5 different spelling patterns:

o – go
o_e – phone
oe – toe
oa – boat
ow – snow

You can learn more about teaching long o words and check out my long o worksheets.

Long U Sound

The long u has two sounds: yoo (/y/ /oo/) and oo (/oo/).

The long u sound can be represented by 7 different spelling patterns:

u – music
u_e – mule
ue – rescue
eu – feud
ew – few
oo – food
ou – soup

Learn more about teaching the long u sound here.

Tips for teaching the long vowel sounds

Teach one spelling pattern at a time!

I don’t mean one vowel sound, but just one spelling pattern. So for example, if you’re working on long a, you would work on the spelling pattern a silent e (cake, same, cave) until students have mastered it, then move on to ai, and so on. You should not be teaching multiple spelling patterns together, even though they make the same sound.

I know that most programs out there combine all the long vowel sound spelling patterns into one lesson, especially in spelling lists, but this does not work for struggling readers. You need to break it down for them and only do one at a time.

Teach the syllable types.

Because syllables have a lot to do with whether vowels make the short or long sound, if students do not already know the 6 syllable types then teach them along with the long vowel sound.

Here are resources for each syllable type:

closed syllable
open syllable
final silent e syllable
vowel team syllable
r combination syllable
consonant le syllable

Use a variety of activities to practice each spelling pattern.

Games, dictation, word sorts, memory or matching with flashcards, word hunts, textured writing, body spelling, and bingo are all fun ways to practice the long vowel sounds.

The main activity that is often overlooked is dictation. It seems so simple but the task involves listening to a word, deciding on the spelling, and transferring that info to written form. These are all skills that struggling readers need to practice.

Teach the spelling generalizations.

Some of the long vowel spelling patterns are spelling rules that make it easy to remember.

For example, ai is usually found at the beginning or middle of a syllable, and ay is usually found at the end of a syllable. [Examples: rain, aim, play, daytime]

Here is another example with long o: oa is usually found at the beginning or middle of a word, and ow is usually found at the end. [Examples: boat, coach, snow]

Long Vowel Word List

I made these word lists to help teach the long vowels. I find it handy to have these on hand when playing phonics games or planning activities for long vowel lessons.

Grab them for free below!

Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers shop to see all my literacy products.

Want to remember this? Save Long Vowel Sounds: Word Lists & Activities to your favorite Pinterest board!

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Delilah Orpi

Delilah Orpi is the owner and founder of Thrive Literacy Corner. She has a Bachelor's degree in Special Education, a Master's degree in TESOL, and is a member of the International Dyslexia Association. She is an experienced educator and literacy specialist trained in Orton Gillingham and Lindamood Bell. Delilah creates literacy resources for educators and parents and writes to create awareness about dyslexia and effective literacy instruction based on the science of reading.

1st Grade Long Vowel Worksheets

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Grade 1: Long Vowels

A long vowel sound is what you get when you place stress on a short vowel sound. Show your kids the difference with the long-vowel worksheets for 1st grade. The worksheets put your children through the process of identifying objects and filling in missing letters. In the process, they get to create, spell, and pronounce words with long vowels in them. The worksheets easily combine work with play, and this gives your kids a concrete reason to keep up with it. The tasks are quite creative, and they come with the variety that is needed to keep the fun in the game.

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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What Sounds Like Float? Worksheet

The sounds oa often make the long /o/ sound when they are put together. Give …

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Long Vowels

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Long «u» Sound Worksheet

Your child will find the bright and cheery pictures in this free PDF worksheet fun …

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Long Vowels

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Let's Check for «i» Sounds Worksheet

This fun worksheet with engaging pictures will help your new readers strengthen their phonics skills …

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Long and Short Vowel Sentences: Assessment Worksheet

It can be tough for children to differentiate between long and short vowel sounds, and …

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Let's Check Long Vowels: Assessment Worksheet

How well can your child read words? What about being able to see a picture …

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Long /u/ Words Worksheet

Phonetic sounds are a must for your child to learn, especially for them to be …

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Long Vowels

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Long Vowel Maze /o/ and /i/ Worksheet

Your new readers will have a ton of fun helping these adorable little mice find …

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Long Vowels

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Long Vowel E Printable

Long vowels can be confusing for kids because the same vowel can be spelled in …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long Vowel A Worksheet

Teaching kids their vowel sounds help them learn to read and spell. Make sure your …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long I Vowel Team Coloring Worksheet

There are lots of different ways letters make the long «i» sound in words, and …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

Worksheet

Long A Vowel Team Coloring Fun Worksheet

Make your next lesson on phonics more fun with this great coloring page! The free …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

Worksheet

Long E Vowel Team Coloring Worksheet

Teach your students all about the long «E» sound with this fun coloring worksheet! Divide …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long and Short U Worksheet

Liven up your next lesson on long and short vowels with this entertaining printout! This …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long and Short A Worksheet

Time to teach your class about long and short vowels? Look no further. This free, …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long and Short I Worksheet

Teach your students the difference between long and short «Is with this fun coloring-in exercise! …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long and Short E Worksheet

This fun printout teaches Grade 3 students all about long and short «Es». Get them …

Grade 1
Long Vowels

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Long and short vowels in English

Longitude is one of the characteristics of a vowel sound, which shows the relative duration of its sound compared to other sounds.

Longitude can be positional and phonemic. In the first case, the duration of the vowel depends on the position in the word and stress, while this characteristic does not affect the meaning. The phonemic length of a vowel has a semantic function, that is, depending on the length of the sound, the meaning of the word changes.

Length of vowel sounds in English

In Russian, the length of vowel sounds does not affect the meaning of words and changes only depending on stress. In English, vowels differ not only in positional but also in phonemic length. This means that long and short sounds, similar in other characteristics, represent different phonemes. Words that differ only in these phonemes have different meanings: ship - sheep , fit - feet , pull - pool . Therefore, it is so important to pronounce long and short sounds correctly.

In transcription, long vowels are indicated with a colon: [i:], [α:], [ɔ:], [u:], [ә:]. In some cases, long vowels in an unstressed position are reduced and become semi-long, which in transcription is indicated by one dot from above: [α ].

The long vowels listed above are opposed to short vowels, forming the following pairs in English:

[i:] - [ı]
[uː] - [u]
[ɔ:] - [ɒ]
[α:] - [ʌ]
[ә:] - [ə]

The pronunciation of long and short English vowels often causes difficulties for Russian learners of English, since in Russian vowels do not have phonemic longitude, and we are not used to distinguishing the length of a vowel sound by ear. We often do not hear the difference between long and short vowels when listening to English speech. It is still not clear how long you need to draw a sound when speaking, so very unnatural, or almost inaudible, or too long vowels are obtained. It is impossible to correctly pronounce short and long sounds so that a native speaker hears the difference, even if you diligently shorten short vowels and stretch out long ones.

Sometimes it seems that native speakers themselves do not know the difference between short and long sounds, they seem to pronounce them the same way - but they themselves understand each other. But it's not. Let's see what are the differences between long and short English vowels, how to learn to hear them and how to train their pronunciation.

Differences between long and short English sounds

It is logical to assume that if vowels are called long or short, they differ in sound length. This is the main difference between them, but not the only one. It is important to understand that long and short sounds have other differences, which consist in articulatory features. This means that the sounds are not just of different lengths, they are also different in sound. And most often it is these articulatory features that determine the length of the vowel sound: the duration of the sound depends on the position of the tongue and the tension of the vocal apparatus.

Long and short English vowels differ in such a characteristic as tension. Long vowels are tense, in English they are also called tense . When they are pronounced, the root of the tongue seems to be tense, under tension. The sound is pronounced, bright, rich, clear.

Short vowels are called lax – relaxed. The tongue in the region of the root is relaxed, the vowel sound is articulated quickly, easily, without additional effort, as if bursting. It turns out short, inconspicuous, faded and fuzzy.

Qualitative differences in sounds in different pairs of English vowels range from pronounced to almost imperceptible. It is easy to notice the difference between long and short sounds a: pay attention to how the words cart and cut are pronounced, they differ not only in duration, but also in sound. But the differences between long and short u are almost imperceptible: pool and pull sound very similar, only slightly different in length. The Scots generally pronounce them the same way, differing only in context.

In addition, the duration of the pronunciation of vowels is also affected by positional longitude - for example, stressed or unstressed position in a word. As a result, a short vowel sound in one word may sound longer than a long sound in another word.

Thus, it is not enough to rely only on the subjective duration of a vowel sound. All the features of short and long vowels described above must be taken into account when learning English. It remains to understand how to master the pronunciation of long and short sounds in practice.

How to learn to pronounce long and short English vowels

The main mistake foreigners make when pronouncing long and short English sounds is focusing only on duration. But with this approach, it is intuitively incomprehensible where the boundary between a long and a short sound passes: you can’t measure the length of a sound with a stopwatch. When trying to artificially lengthen or shorten a vowel, the sounds are unnaturally short or drawn out.

To learn how to pronounce long and short English sounds, you need to forget about the usual terminology "long" and "short". Try not to think about the duration of the sound at all. To correctly pronounce long and short vowels, you need to focus on their articulation, and not on duration. If we correctly reproduce the pronunciation of the vowel, then the duration will turn out to be correct automatically. Remember that long vowels require more tension at the root of the tongue, while short ones are pronounced without additional effort, easily and without tension.

Pay attention to how native speakers pronounce vowels - don't watch how long they draw them out, but watch the pronunciation, the articulation, the quality of the sound. Repeat, imitate, practice. For practice, it is best to use video lessons or a conversation with a native speaker, since audio materials do not make it possible to see articulation.

It is best to train long and short sounds not separately, but as part of words. First, this way you will note the influence of positional longitude on the duration of the sound in specific examples. Secondly, just as words are best learned in context, sounds are also best learned in the environment.

Practice pronunciation of long and short vowels in pairs of words to notice the difference between sounds, for example:

Sport – hot
Arm-cut
See-hit
Food-put
Fur – ago

When you learn how to pronounce long and short vowels correctly in English, it will become easy to distinguish between them in speech. When listening to speech, forget about the differences in duration, pay attention to the qualitative differences in sounds - how intensely the vowel is pronounced, how bright or faded it sounds, how pairs of sounds differ from each other, except for duration.

Emphasis. Type of accent. Place of impact.

Lesson 4: Emphasis. Type of accent. Place of impact.

Stress is the selection of one syllable from a measure. A syllable is distinguished by a relative difference in suprasegmental features between individual syllables tact.

Accent type

According to the method of isolating a syllable from a measure, the stress can be divided into:

dynamic (expiratory, power) - the syllable is emphasized by the force of exhalation
quantitative (quantitative) - the syllable is distinguished by longitude
melodic (musical, tonal) - the syllable is distinguished by the movement of the voice tone.

In fact, there are no pure types of stress, almost always one type is accompanied by another, although one of them prevails.

Dynamic accent is available in Russian, English, Czech and other languages. In Russian, dynamic stress is associated with quantitative stress.

The melodic accent occurs, for example, in Serbo-Croatian, Lithuanian, Chinese, etc.

Dynamic stress is either strong (in Russian, English, etc.) or weak (in Czech, Georgian, etc.)

In highly dynamically stressed languages, almost all the force extruded from the lungs by the air stream is used to pronounce stressed syllable. Unstressed syllables lack strength, they weaken and change.

Changing the sound of unstressed syllables (primarily their sonorous center) is called reduction .

According to the method of separating a syllable from a measure in Russian strong dynamic stress : vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced, which leads to a variety of vowel sounds (allophones), in which a limited the number of phonemes in the Russian language. The strength of Russian stress is accompanied by duration - the substressed syllable of the Russian word is not only the strongest, but also the longest.

In Czech weak dynamic stress : vowels in unstressed syllables hardly change.

For example: Zá -Mek VE -ool B -cher Zá -IOC for - MC

Duration of the vowel of vowels performs a meaning -uniform function and is not associated with the dynamism of the stress. (i.e. it is a property segment elements) and does not depend on the stressed or unstressed position. Long vowels are twice as long as short ones.

Duration of the vowel sounds of the PR is not an independent property of segmental elements, it accompanies the force of dynamic stress and is its secondary characteristic. Unstressed vowels are 2-3 times longer than unstressed ones.

So, in the PR there is a strong dynamic stress with a significant quantitative component.

In CN a weak dynamic stress without a quantitative component.

For example:

pa-má-tka

Place of impact

According to the place of the allocated syllable in the word they differ:

fixed stress (it always happens on a certain syllable - in CN on the first, in French on the last)
free (non-local), which is not associated with a specific place in the word, it falls on any syllable, for example, in RL, in English. lang.

Free accent has two subtypes:

free permanent i.e. in different forms of a given word, the stress always falls on the same syllable (in English, in most words in RL)
free movable i.e. in different forms of this word, the stress falls on different syllables (for example, in some Russian words - mo-re - mo-r i , pi-shu - p and -shesh).

In RL, the stress is free, mobile and has the function of a semantic-distinctive, phonological means: lock - lock, pi-li - pi-whether. In SN, the stress is fixed and cannot acquire a phonological function.

But the mobility of Russian stress is limited, in most Russian words the stress is constant .

Each independent word in the Russian language has, as a rule, one stress . Functional and in a few cases also some independent words do not have stress on themselves and are adjacent to the neighboring word as proclitic or enclitic .

Enclitics of are some particles, for example: tell me, the teacher said ..., sometimes they can be independent words, for example: didn’t give, didn’t live, take by the hair, etc.

Proclitics of are usually monosyllabic prepositions, conjunctions, particles, etc., e.g. prepositions in combination with definite nouns sometimes shift the stress onto themselves (the next word becomes unstressed, enclitic). For example: on the head, by the hand, by the hand, without a trace ... (in CH this applies to almost all prepositions).

Two-syllable and three-syllable auxiliary words are either unstressed or weakly impacted (with secondary stress), e. g. in an hour or in an hour.

Polysyllabic words formed by the addition of two or more stems have, along with the main stress, one more (or more) - secondary . The main stress always falls on the stressed syllable of the last stem of a polysyllabic word, side ones are closer to its beginning, e.g., Far Eastern, radio broadcast. Compound words, small in volume, do not have collateral stress: locomotive, gardener.

Exercise

Exercise 4.1

Read, Follow the change in stress in related words

Gorod - Gorod - Goroda - Correction - City - Zathorodny

Hold - Khulodnovo - Kholodnov - cold - cold - Golos - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa - Golosa undertone

Frost - frost - frost and lo - in s frost - frosty

Collar - gate - gate - collar - collar

Beard - beards - chin - wart

Work - earnings - earned - in worked

Gold - gold and clear - gold - gold plated

Crow - crow - crow - crow - crow

Exercise 4.

Tear off -	apply -	shoot -
Slep and -	sketch -	break off
Cut -	underweight -

Exercise 4.

Form the words of this rhythmic pattern

tá – ta

ta – tá

ta – ta – tá

ta – tá – ta

tá – ta – ta

Exercise 4.4

Place emphasis, doctor, report

, steamboat, composer, album, ravine, apparatus, vegetables, room, motor vehicle, dog, road, rock, head, beard, wasp, window, stop, chrysalis, grandmother, father, sister, medicine, patronymic, shore, no place, under the window, in the forest, on the table, under the snow, near the house, near the city, above the door, across the field, across the river.

Exercise 4.5

Read, pay attention to stress and correct pronunciation took off, pull - chan and .

Literature

The lesson was prepared using the following literature:

Theoretical part

[1]Oliverius, Z. Phonetics of the Russian language. Praha : S.P.N.

1St grade long vowel words

Long Vowel Sounds: Word Lists & Activities

What is a long vowel sound?

Long Vowel Words

Long A Sound

Long E Sound

Long I Sound

Long O Sound

Long U Sound

Tips for teaching the long vowel sounds

Long Vowel Word List

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1st Grade Long Vowel Worksheets

Grade 1: Long Vowels

Long and short vowels in English

Emphasis. Type of accent. Place of impact.

Lesson 4: Emphasis. Type of accent. Place of impact.

Accent type

Place of impact

Exercise

Exercise 4.1

Exercise 4.

Exercise 4.

Exercise 4.4

Exercise 4.5

Literature

Theoretical part

Learn more