Indicates the long vowel sound
Short Vowels and Long Vowels Lesson Plan
Objectives:
- Students will learn how to recognize and remember the sounds of both short vowels and long vowels.
- Students will be able to produce the sounds of the short vowels and long vowels in isolation.
About the Concept:
Vowels in the English language can represent a variety of sounds. The first step in mastering the various vowel sounds is learning the difference between short vowels and long vowels. Of the two, the long vowels are easier for children to learn because long vowels basically sound the same as the letter names. For example, long a sounds like the a in able, long
o sounds like the o in over, and long u may sound like the u in use or the u in blue. Children generally find it more challenging to learn the short vowel sounds because many of them sound so similar to each other: The short i in pig sounds very similar to the short e in peg. The short o in pop sounds a lot like the short u in pup. Before children can learn the rules for spelling and reading short and long vowel sounds, they must be able to recognize and produce these sounds reliably. The short vowels can represented by a curved symbol above the vowel: ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ. The long vowels can be represented by a horizontal line above the vowel: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū. Here are some examples of short vowel words: at, egg, it, ox, up.
Here are some examples of long vowel words: ate, each, ice, oak, use. When students have learned to recognize the vowel sounds in
Oh, Do You Know?, they can learn short vowel spelling patterns through the Volume 1 song Spelling Families. Long vowel spelling patterns are covered in the Volume 1 songs Talking and Walking and Silent E. Some other songs that teach students about vowel spelling patterns are the Volume 2 songs, Spelling Choices, Cool Vowels, The Right Diphthong, and I Before E, and the Volume 3 songs Why Does Y? and Drop It!.
Materials:
- Sing Your Way Through Phonics Volume 1 CD, Tracks 9 and 10 (Listen to audio sample)
- Sing Your Way Through Phonics Volume 1 Mini-Charts (pp. 41-46)
- Letter cards for a, e, i, o, and u.
- Chart displaying long vowel words and pictures (ex. ape, eagle, ice cream, ocean, unicorn)
- Chart displaying short vowel symbols, words and pictures (ex. alligator, eggs, iguana, octopus, umbrella)
- Optional: Cards with medial-position short vowel pictures (ex. hat, cat, hen, pen, fish, dish, dog, log, gum, drum)
- Optional: Cards with medial-position long vowel pictures (ex. snake, rake, sheep, sleep, kite, night, goat, coat, flute, suit)
Note: If you do not have the CD or Mini-Charts, you can still teach this short vowels and long vowels lesson plan using the folk tune listed on the Oh, Do You Know? Song Lyrics page. You can create your own mini-charts using the words in bold print letters in each verse of the Song Lyrics.
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Procedure:
- Review the letter names of the vowels: a
, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.
Say, "Today, we are going to learn about how vowels can sound in words. We will focus on a, e, i, o, and u." - Display letter cards a, e, i, o, and u. Say, "Sometimes it is easy to hear the vowel in a word. Can you tell me what vowel you hear in the word use (u), in the word eat (e), in the word ape (a), in the word ice (i), in the word oak (o)?" Point to the correct letter card, each time the children answer correctly. Say, "It is easy to hear the vowels in these words because they actually say their own names. When vowels sound just like their own letter names, we call these long vowels."
- Display the chart of the long vowels with pictures and symbols.
Point to the long vowel chart and say, "We can draw a long line over the vowel if we want to show that it has a long sound. Ask the students to draw this symbol in the air. " Point to
ā, and say, "Long a sounds like the beginning of ape." Say together, "Long ē sounds like the beginning of eagle. Long ī sounds like the beginning of ice cream. Long ō sounds like the beginning of ocean. Long ū sounds like the beginning of unicorn." - Say, "Sometimes a vowel has a different sound and does not say its own name." Show the chart with the short vowel words and pictures. Say, "This chart shows words that have a short vowel sounds."
- Point to the symbols on the short vowel chart and say, "We can draw a short smile over the vowel to show that it has a short sound.
" Ask the students to draw this symbol in the air. Say, "Let's practice the short vowel sounds saying just the beginning of each word on the chart. Can you say just the beginning of the word alligator? (/ă/), the beginning of the word eggs? (/ĕ/), the beginning of the word iguana? (/ĭ/), the beginning of the word octopus? (/ŏ/), the beginning of the word umbrella?" (/ŭ/) - Say, “Now we are going to listen to a song about the vowel sounds to help us remember them. At first, the singers will sing about all the short vowel sounds. Next, the singers will sing about all the long vowel sounds. See if you can think the sounds for each vowel before you hear it in the song.” Play Sing Your Way Through Phonics Volume 1 CD, Track 9--Oh, Do You Know? and point to the Mini-Charts on pages 42-46.
- Point to the symbols on the chart and say, "Did you notice that the short smile and the long line can be written over either capital or lowercase letters? Let's listen to this song again and see if you can answer the singer's questions.
Re-play Sing Your Way Through Phonics Volume 1 CD, Track 9--Oh, Do You Know? Students will hear the question, "Oh, do you know the short a sound, the short a sound, the short a sound?" They should sing the answer, "Oh, yes I know the short a sound. The short a sound is /ă/." For the rest of the questions in the song, students should sing the aswers, "The short e sound is /ĕ/...The short i sound is /ĭ/...The short o sound is /ŏ/..., The short u sound is /ŭ/..., The long a sound is /ā/..., The long e sound is /ē/..., The long i sound is /ī/..., The long o sound is /ō/..., The long u sound is /ū/.
" Teachers can point to the children to cue them when it is their turn to answer the song's question. - Listen to the song again, but this time assign a part of the class to sing the song's questions and a part of the class to sing the song's answers. Then switch roles singing questions and answers. Variations: The teacher sings the questions and students sing the answers or vice versa. A small group of students sing the questions and the rest of the class sings the answers or vice versa. Those singing the answers can write the appropriate symbols in the air or make large symbols with their arm positions as they sing the short or long sounds. Examples: Hold arms out to the sides arching upward for short vowels. Hold arms straight out to the sides for long vowels.
Follow-up:
- Practice singing Oh, Do You Know daily for a few days. Then try singing the song without hearing the words, using the instrumental track (Track 10).
Allow different students to point to the Mini-Charts words while singing. - Using the Mini-Chart Templates, vary the order of vowels (Ex:short i, short a, short u, short e, short o) or vary short and long vowels in sequence (Ex: short a, long a, short e, long e, etc.)
- As a learning center task, have students match pairs of picture cards with the same vowel sounds (Ex: cat/hat, snake/rake). Note: At this point in their learning, it is easier for children to do this task if rhyming words are used. As they advance, they may be able to match short common vowels in pictures of non-rhyming words such as bag and bat.
Extensions:
- Introduce the Read-and-Sing Book, Oh, Do You Know?. The comical illustrations provide several examples of each sound in the song.
When children sing, "Oh, do you know the short a sound?", they can point to cats, apples, ants, an ax, a hat, and a basket. For long a, they will find Amos listening to the radio, holding a May calendar next to a table with cake, maple syrup, grapes, and plates. After children can remember all the vowel sounds, they can sing on their own with the instrumental version of the song and perhaps create their own short and long vowel pictures. They will also enjoy grouping objects that have the same vowel sounds or creating collages of magazine cut-outs. Keep a few copies of the book at a literacy center equipped with headsets so that students can gain practice in listening, singing, and remembering the sounds of the long and short vowels. - Using 3-letter or 4-letter words, explain the rule that when one vowel is in the middle of a word, it is usually short (Ex. bag, sit, bed). Print some of these words on a word wall. Pointing to an appropriate word, perform this rap to reinforce the short vowel rule: "Got one vowel in the middle of the word, got one vowel in the middle of the word, got one vowel in the middle of the word--Say /ă/, say /ă/, say /ă/ [clap-clap].
Repeat by pointing to another appropriate word and another short vowel sound until all short vowel sounds have been covered. Variations: Add back and forth side-steps while reciting the rap. Change the ending claps to taps, stomps, or knocks. Add rhythm instruments to help keep the beat. - Find short vowel words in children's books and poems. Examples: From Shel Silverstein's Poetry in Where the Sidewalk Ends-Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me, Too for short i; Jimmy Jet and his TV Set for short e. Singing games like The Banana Song (using the name Anna). Dr. Seuss' There's a Wocket in my Pocket and Fox in Sox for short o. Nursery Rhymes like Jack Sprat for short a; Diddle Diddle Dumpling for short i, short u, short o, and short e; Hickety-Pickety for short i and short e.
- Find short and long vowel sounds in students' names. Ex. Ann, Ellen, Jim, John, Buddy for short vowels; Jake, Steve, Mike, Joan, and Judy for long vowels.
- Find short and long vowel sounds in environmental words like Exit, Stop, Bus, In. Label classroom objects that illustrate short and long vowel sounds: dĕsk, chāir, tāble, gāme, pĕncils, pĕns, pāper, shĕlf, răck, lĕdge, ēasel.
- Have a Show-and-Tell time where children bring in objects with a particular short or long vowel sound. Place these or other objects on a table labeled with that vowel and the short or long symbol.
Evaluation:
- Students can produce the correct short vowel and long vowel sounds on Mini-Charts pp.41-46 without assistance.
- Students pass a written or manipulative test where they match pairs of short vowel pictures and long vowel pictures.
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What are the American English Long Vowel Sounds? — Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation
What is a long vowel sound?Long vowel is the term used to refer to vowel sounds whose pronunciation is the same as its letter name. The five vowels of the English spelling system ('a', 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u') each have a corresponding long vowel sound /eɪ/, /i/, /ɑɪ/, /oʊ/, /yu/.
Long vowels are generally the easiest vowels for non-native English speakers to distinguish and pronounce correctly.
It is easier to hear vowel sounds within words than it is to hear the sound alone. Listen to the following words to help learn to hear individual sounds.
long a /eɪ/: cake /keɪk/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)
long e /i/: keep /kip/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)
long i /ɑɪ/: bike/bɑɪk/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)
long o /oʊ/: home /hoʊm/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)
long u /yu/: cute /kyut/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)
Introduction to two-sound vowelsA two-sound vowel is a vowel sound that includes a 'y sound' /y/or a 'w sound' /w/ in the pronunciation. Often, the /y/ or /w/ is only a minor part of the sound, but must be included for the sound to be pronounced fully.
Two-sound vowels are known linguistically as diphthongs (pronounced as dip-thong or dif-thong).
In North American English, four of the five long vowel sounds are pronounced as two-sound vowels.
long a /eɪ/, ends in a brief /y/
long i /ɑɪ/, ends in a brief /y/
long o /oʊ/, ends in a brief /w/
long u /yu/, begins with a brief /y/
Note that /yu/ is essentially the /y/ plus the 'oo sound' /u/ and is the only vowel sound that will be preceded by the article a rather than an. Thinking of /yu/ to be a two-sound vowel helps to distinguish it from /u/ for learning purposes.
The Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) patternA spelling pattern that is true for all long vowel sounds is the Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) pattern.
The VCe pattern states that when a single vowel is followed by a single consonant, then the letter 'e', the first vowel is pronounced as a long vowel sound and the letter 'e' is silent.
Vowel-consonant-e spelling examples
long a /eɪ/: late /leɪt/
long e /i/: delete /də lit/
long i /ɑɪ/: kite /kɑɪt/
long o /oʊ/: note /noʊt/
long u /yu/: cute /kyut/
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.
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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. nine0003
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. nine0003
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. nine0003
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. nine0003
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.
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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. nine0003
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.
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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. nine0003
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. nine0121
[ I ]
[ 9[ V ]
[ E ], as in the word BAD Bad
Most often found in words ending at -ing - Thing [θiŋ] , [ A ] and [ E ]
English vowel sounds are divided into monophthongs , i.
e. sounds consisting of one element, and diphthongs , or triphthongs , i.e. sounds consisting of 2 or 3 elements. Vowels can be short or long. The length of the sound is indicated in the transcription by 2 dots [i:], [ɔ:].
According to the participation of the organs of speech (according to articulation), vowel sounds are divided into:
Vowels
| [i: ] | Front lingual closed long vowel, similar to long Russian [ and ] |
| [i] | same as previous sound but pronounced succinctly |
| [e] | Semi-open front-lingual short sound similar to the Russian sound [ e ] in the word “six” |
| [æ] | Front-lingual sound similar to Russian [ e ], pronounced with a wide open mouth |
| [a:] | a long open back-lingual sound similar to the Russian sound [ a ] in the stressed syllable of the word “stick”; |
| [ɔ] | short open posterior lingual sound similar to very open short sound [o] |
| [ɔ:] | long open back-lingual sound similar to Russian long sound [o] |
| [u] | closed posterior lingual short sound similar to short sound [y] |
| [u: ] | same sound, but long |
| [Λ] | a short half-open middle language sound, pronounced like a Russian unstressed [o], and [a] in the words “bridges”, “gardens”, almost always stands under stress |
| [ə] | Short middle language semi-open neutral sound, close to the English sound [ Λ ] something between [ a ] and [ e ] |
| [ɜː] | Long middle-language sound, something in between Russian [yo] and [o]. |
Consonants
English consonants are classified according to the following principles:
b) according to the work of the active organ of speech and the place of formation of the obstruction :
c) participation of the vocal cords :
Final voiceless consonants are characterized by strong articulation, a significant weakening of articulation is inherent in final voiced consonants.
