Long vowel words for 2nd grade

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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:

1. a – baby
2. a_e – cake
3. ai – rain
4. ay – play
5. ei – reindeer
6. eigh – weight
7. ea – steak
8. 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:

1. e – be
2. e_e – eve
3. ee – meet
4. ea – beach
5. ei – protein
6. ie – piece
7. ey – key
8. 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:

1. i – silent
2. i_e – shine
3. ie – pie
4. igh – light
5. y – my
6. 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:

1. o – go
2. o_e – phone
3. oe – toe
4. oa – boat
5. 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:

1. u – music
2. u_e – mule
3. ue – rescue
4. eu – feud
5. ew – few
6. oo – food
7. 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!

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 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.

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Long Vowel Sounds: Fun Activities & Teaching Tips

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Is your child struggling with reading or pronouncing long vowel sounds? Are you ready to move past CVC words, but aren’t sure how to teach long vowels in reading and phonics? Long vowel sounds can be a point of struggle for many young readers. While short vowel sounds are relatively straightforward and spelled the same each time, long vowel sounds are more complex.

In this post, we are going to talk about when to teach long vowel sounds, some tips for teaching the different rules, and a few fun activities and printables for practicing long vowel sounds. Let’s get started!

How to Teach Long Vowel Sounds

Let’s start with how the long vowel sounds are formed. As you go over these rules with your child, you can point them out when they pop up while youare reading books and stories together. Just a quick mention “Hey look, that’s a vowel team. When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. So, they must make the “a” sound.” or something like that.

No need to ruin story time with a grammar lesson.

How to Identify Long Vowel Sounds

Long vowels tend to be easier to identify when speaking because the letters “say their names”. A short a, as in apple, makes a sound, but the long a, as in bay says the name of the letter. Long vowel sounds occur when the letter “says its name”.

Forming Long Vowel Sounds

There are four main ways that long vowels are formed: with a silent e, at the end of a syllable, using vowel teams, and I or O before a consonant. When you are teaching long vowels sounds to your young reader, focus on just one of these rules at a time. Let them get comfortable with that rule before moving on to the next one. Let’s look at each type of long vowel formation.

Silent e. Adding an e to the end of a CVC word changes the short vowel sound into a long vowel sound. Here are some examples:

At the end of a syllable. Vowels are often long vowel sounds when they come at the end of a word. For example, hon-ey, hi, mu-sic, me, ban-jo, etc.

Vowel teams. Long vowel sounds can also be created when two vowels are next to each other. This rule has a cute saying that you may have heard: “when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking”. This simply means that generally, the first vowel is the long vowel sound in the word and the second vowel is silent (or not talking). For example: meat, train, please, tree, boat.

I or O before two consonants. This one is pretty straightforward. If I or O comes right before to consonants, it is usually a long vowel sound. Think of words like high, light, sign, mind, pint, comb.

When to Teach Long Vowel Sounds

Mastering long vowel sound decoding is essential to building a strong reading foundation. Young readers will need this skill in later years when they are decoding and learning new, more complex words. For this reason, spending the time needed to make sure your young reader (or struggling reader) masters this skill is definitely worth it.

Long Vowel Sound Activities

My first grader wasn’t interested in reading last year, so we didn’t really push it. And, she has a very low frustration level, so I tend to wait on skills that are especially hard for her to keep her school experience a positive one.

Well, fast forward to first grade and she just started memorizing words and reading up a storm. This is fine because reading is essentially memorizing thousands of words and being able to recall them instantly. But, she also needs to be able to sound out new words she encounters, so she can expand her vocabulary.

Since she kind of learned to read backwards, we are going back and reviewing (or learning for the first time) some phonics and spelling rules. She already had a good grasp on her consonant sounds, blends, and short vowels. Reading long vowels isn’t really a problem for her, but sounding them out to spell them on her own is.

To help her practice, I decided to make some activities to practice her long vowel words. You can sign up at the end of the post to get these activities for free!

Finish the Word: Long Vowel Sounds

The first activity I want to share is my Finish the Word worksheet. It is just a simple worksheet with pictures on it. Each picture has a long vowel sound and I have left those letters out of the spelling below the word. The young reader, or writer, in this case, must fill in the missing letters to spell the word pictured above it.

Here is a peek at the first page (there are two pages in the download):

Related Post:Sort-A-Scene: Long Vowels and Dipthongs

Long Vowel Bookmarks

I have to give my daughter credit for this one, she came up with it all on her own. I had created another long vowel activity when she said “Now, I’m going to make an activity, Mom.” And away she went.

What she came up with was actually great! Here is a shot of the original version (her cutting and color-coding, my word lists):

When she showed it to me, I was amazed. Such a fantastic, simple idea! I told her I was going to create a blog post and product from it and she got all excited. So, you can simply make your own lists. Or, if you’re strapped for time and don’t feel like thinking up all the words that have long vowels, you can print out my lists!

The activity itself is very simple. Students look at each list. At the top is one of the vowels (for example, long a). Next, the student reads down through the list and highlights the words that have that long vowel sound. My daughter wanted to use a different color for each vowel because….more colors equals more fun in our house!

Here is a peek at my pre-printed lists (there are four sets of lists in the download):

Long Vowel Poster Set

I think reference materials are so important for young learners. Seeing the information about which they are learning helps to ingrain it into their brain. I also like to gently teach my daughter to find answers for herself instead of just asking me all the time. These long vowel posters are great for kids to be able to look at them and see all of their options for a particular vowel sound.

I created full-page versions and half-page versions, so just print the pages you prefer.

Here is a peek:

Sign up below to download the activities shown in the post, plus a ton of other homeschooling freebies!

More Free Long Vowel Resources

Whenever I come across a great resource, I love to share it with my readers. Here are some other resources and blog posts that might help you if you are working on reading with your child.

Free long vowel products from Teachers Pay Teachers.

This Reading Mama always has great printables and her long vowel sounds printables are no exception.

The All About Learning Press blog has some great spelling resources and a free printable vowel combinations chart.

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Lesson "Compound words" (Grade 2, PNSh)

How words are made.

Compound words from two roots with a letter connecting vowel.

(grade 2 "Perspective Primary School")

Lesson goal: mastering the spelling of words consisting of two roots.

Tasks:

- teaching:

- to consolidate the ability to find and form complex words;

- analyze, generalize, systematize;

- develop memory, attention, speech of students;

- developing:

- improvement oral and written speech,

- enrichment of students' vocabulary;

- educational:

- instilling interest in the Russian language;

- education of the culture of intellectual work;

- creation of an emotional and valuable attitude to the subject;

- fostering trusting relationships, a sense of mutual assistance, support.

Lesson type: generalization and systematization of knowledge.

Formation of UUD in the lesson:

Personal UUD

- formation of the desire to perform learning activities;

- use of fantasy, imagination when performing learning activities

Cognitive UUD

- independent selection and formulation educational purpose;

- search and selection of necessary information;

- selection of the most effective ways to solve the problem;

- the ability and ability of students to produce simple logical actions (analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, etc.)

by peers – determination of the purpose, functions of participants, ways of interaction;