Long a sight words

Long A Sound, List of Long A Words and Worksheets

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The long a sound can be spelled several ways. The magic e or final e and the open syllable are the most common ways. In addition, the long a sound can be represented in 2 vowel teams (“ai” and “ay”). Of course, there will be exceptions or odd balls- the irregular vowel team (“ei”).

Five Ways to Spell the Long A Sound

1. Magic E (VCe or a_e)

The magic E rule states when a word contains the letter “e” at the end, it is usually silent and the preceding vowel says its name (long sound), e.g., cake and date.

2. Vowel Team – AI

The vowel team rule states when two vowels go walking the first does the talking and the second vowel is silent. The combination of both an “a” and an “i” (double vowels) results in the long a sound. There are many AI words, e.g., maid, brain and paint.

3. Vowel Team – AY

As noted above, when two vowels go walking the first does the talking. The combination of both an “a” and “y” can result in the long a sound. The AY words, e.g., day and say, are not as plentiful as the AI words.

4. Irregular Vowel Team – EI

The vowel team rule states when two vowels go walking the first does the talking and the second vowel is silent. Like most things in life, there are exceptions. The combination of the vowels “e” and “i” can result in the long a sound, e.g., eight, sleigh, neigh and weigh.

5. Open Syllable – Long A

An open syllable occurs when a vowel is at the end of the syllable (it is not closed by a consonant), e.g., A/pril and ha/zy.

Long A Words

The table below contains 169 long A words. The words are categorized into one of the five ways the long a sound can be spelled – Magic E Rule, Vowel Teams (2), Irregular Vowel Team and Open Syllable.

Long A Worksheets

We created 30 worksheets to assist a child in learning the various ways the long A sound can be spelled.

Source: Fry, E. B., Ph.D. & Kress, J.E., Ed.D. (2006). The Reading
Teacher’s Book of Lists 5th Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass

Reader Interactions

Top 100 Sight Words and How to Teach Them

Sight words is a common term in reading that  has a variety of meanings. When it is applied to early reading instruction, it typically refers to the set of about 100 words that keeps reappearing on almost any page of text. “Who, the, he, were, does, their, me, be” are a few examples.

In addition to their being very frequent, many of these words cannot be “sounded out.” Children are expected to learn them by sight (that is, by looking at them and recognizing them, without any attempt to sound them out.)

Unfortunately, this means minimal teaching. Often, little is done other than to show the word and tell the child what it is “saying.” For many children, this is not enough, with the result that their reading of these critical words is laden with error.

What does this mean for parents who are helping their children master reading? Basically it means spending some time in truly teaching these words so that your child gains real mastery of them. The key to achieving this goal is accurate writing (spelling)—via memory. That is, the child writes the word when the model is not in view.

You can do this by creating simple sentences that the child reads. (By using sentences, you will automatically be using many “sight words.” In addition, you will be giving your child the opportunity to deal with words in context—a key to meaningful reading) After showing the sentence and having your child read it, turn it over and then dictate the sentence. If there is an error, you immediately stop your child and take away the paper. Then you show the model again and repeat the process. In other words, the writing of the sentence has to be fully accurate, starting with the first word.

If you want a list of those words to help guide your efforts, here is the top 100 according to the American Heritage Word Frequency Book by John B. Carroll.

A: a, an, at, are, as, at, and, all, about, after

B: be, by, but, been

C: can, could, called

D: did, down, do

E: each

F: from, first, find, for

H: he, his, had, how, has, her, have, him

I: in, I, if, into, is, it, its

J: just

K: know

L: like, long, little

M: my, made, may, make, more, many, most,

N: not, no, now

O: or, one, of, out, other, over, only, on

P: people

S: said, she,  some, so, see

T: the, to, they, this, there, them, then, these, two, time, than, that, their

U: up, use

V: very

W: was, with, what, were, when, we, which, will, would, words, where, water, who, way

Y: you, your

Click here to download our Recommended Top 100 Sight Words.

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What did the Guinness Book of Records not take into account?

According to the Guinness Book of Records 2003, the longest word in Russian consists of 35 letters.

This word is highly contemplative .

If we turn to the spelling dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the longest word in Russian has "only" 29 letters.

And this word is water and mud peat paraffin treatment .

But the ability of the Russian language to form words reveals its potential for the formation of long words. Therefore, we will consider which words are actually the LONGEST in Russian.

Miracles of word formation

1. Scientific terms related to chemical production. They have the largest number of letters. For example:

• tetrahydropyranylcyclopentyltetrahydropy ridopyridine (55 letters)
• hydrazinocarbonylmethyl bromophenyl dihydrobe nzdiazepine (50 letters)
• cocamidopropylpropylene glycol dimonium chlorine id phosphate (48 letters)
• methoxychlorodiethylaminomethylbutylaminoacr idine (44 letters)

2. The next group in terms of "duration" are compound words (usually adjectives), formed from numerals . For example:

• thousand nine hundred and eighty nine millimeters (46 letters)
• 457 mm (37 letters)
• 88 cm (31 letters)

3. Followed by compound words related to various fields of activity people (in most cases to production, medicine). For example:

• X-ray electrocardiographic (33 letters)
• fibroesophagogastroduodenoscopy (31 letters)
• water and mud peat paraffin treatment (29 letters)
• power windows (27 letters)

4. Despite the fact that abbreviations were created to simplify full names, there was an abbreviation in the Russian language consisting of 56 letters:

NIIOMTPPPPELBOPELEBESBOTRABSBOMONIMONKO NotDDDDEPSISISISSR 9000 9

And the decoding looks even worse: « Research Laboratory for Concrete Reinforcement Operations and Reinforced Concrete Works for the Construction of Prefabricated Monolithic and Monolithic Structures of the Technology Department of the Construction and Installation Administration of the Academy of Construction and Architecture of the USSR » .