Short and long vowel sorts

Sorting mats for short and long vowels

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Today I’m shorting a set of free sorting mats! They’re perfect for helping kids learn the sounds of short and long vowels.

Have you seen our popular consonant sound sorting mats?  I use those to review beginning sounds. When I created the set, I didn’t include vowels because there are very few words that start with vowels… at least, very few words that can be represented with pictures.

But due to popular demand, I’m now sharing a set of mats that will help your students distinguish between short and long vowels. These mats will help them listen to the vowel sounds within the words.

The set includes ten mats and a set of nine pictures for each one.

I started by having my Four do an easy sort: he sorted pictures for short a and short o. He already knew the sounds of these letters, but if your child needs help you can put down the first picture for each mat as a clue.

We moved on with a harder sort: short e and short i. Those sounds are always harder to distinguish.

He needed a fair amount of help with this sort.

Finally, I had my Four sort short i and long i. You can see that he put the “nine” on the short i mat. I had him say the word “chick” and listen to hear if “nine” had the same sound.

To make the activity more challenging, give your child more than two mats at a time. Maybe your child is ready to sort pictures for all five short or long vowels.

There are so many possibilities with this set! I hope you get a lot of use out of them!

To prepare:

• • Print the mats and cards. Laminate for durability. (We love this laminator!)
  • If desired, put clear Velcro dots on the backs of the cards and on the mats. If you’re going to get a lot of use out of the mats, I think it’s worth the expense. Kids love them!
  • Store the mats and cards in a gallon plastic bag.

Enjoy!

Check out our other sets of free sorting mats!

Get your free sorting mats!

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Filed Under: Letter sounds, Alphabet, Reading Tagged With: short vowels, long vowels, first grade, kindergarten

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Vowel Sort Worksheets: Long & Short Vowels

Grade 1 | Vowels

ByKatie June 14, 2022June 22, 2022

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our disclosure policy.

Get five vowel sorts to help kids distinguish between long and short vowel sounds heard in words. Each worksheet includes ten pictures to sort: Five pictures with short vowels, and five pictures with long vowels.

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Table of Contents

• Long and Short Vowels
• Short and Long Vowel Words
• Using The Worksheets
• Tips and Info
• Related Posts
• 🖨️ Download & Print

Long and Short Vowels

A, E, I, O, and U are the five vowels in the English language, and all vowels have multiple sounds called long and short sounds.

Children must know the difference between the long and short sounds that vowels make! When decoding new words, they can quickly flex between the sounds to figure out the real word.

👉 For example: When reading the word music, does mŭ/sic (short u sound) or mū/sic (long u sound) sound like the right word?

Short Vowels Sounds

• A a – /ă/ – apple
• E e – /ĕ/ – elephant
• I i – /ĭ/ – igloo
• O o – /ŏ/ – octopus
• U u – /ŭ/ – umbrella

Long Vowels Sounds (Remember, long vowels say their name!)

• A a – /ā/ – acorn
• E e – /ē / – equal
• I i – /ī/ – ice
• O o – /ō/ – ocean
• U u- /ū/ – unicorn

Short and Long Vowel Words

A Words

• Short ă Words: Backpack, cab, cat, rat, cap.
• Long ā Words: Chair, rake, plane, chain, sail.

E Words

• Short ĕ Words: Pen, hen, web, net, tent.
• Long ē Words: Seal, cheese, bee, read, pea.

I Words

• Short ĭ Words: Squid, pig, zip, dig, swim.
• Long ī Words: Light, cry, knife, dime, kite.

O Words

• Short ŏ Words: Pot, frog, hot, dog, fox.
• Long ō Words: Hose, boat, coat, snow, bone.

U Words

• Short ŭ Words: Sun, rug, bug, brush, nut.
• Long ū Words: Cube, unicorn, puke, tissue, music.

Using The Worksheets

👉 Before you begin, be sure kids know the names of the pictures. The corresponding words are all listed above. Briefly review the pictures before having children complete the activity!

These worksheets are designed to practice comparing the long and short sounds that vowels make. Children look at the colorful, easy-to-recognize picture word.

Next, they identify the vowel sounds they hear in words, then cut, sort, and paste them in the correct place according to their long or short sounds!

Tips and Info

• This activity is great for 1st-grade students, or any children learning long vowel sounds.
• Print in color so kids can see the bright, beautiful pictures!
• Extend the Activity: After sorting the picture cards, have your students try to spell the short vowel words. If you’re introducing long vowels, then they should have every skill needed to spell all of the short vowel word pictures!

Related Posts

• Long & Short Vowel Sounds – With 2 Free Anchor Charts!
• BR and BL Blends Worksheets
• CVC Decodable Sentences

🖨️ Download & Print

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Please leave a comment below or tag us on Instagram @literacylearn.

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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. nine0003

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.

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

Long and short vowels in German: long and short sounds

Photo: suju / pixabay.com

So, voiceless and voiced consonants can form pairs. What about vowels? Of course, vowels cannot be voiceless or voiced, but they can be pronounced long or short and form pairs in longitude. Let's see how it works in German!

What are long and short vowels for?

In modern Russian and most Slavic languages, all vowels are pronounced short, and their lengthening may seem strange or even funny to us (for example, in Finnish or Estonian). nine0003

Long and short vowels are common in German and English. Their sound is not as noticeable as in the languages ​​​​from the example above, but it is extremely important in conversation and perception of oral speech. The thing is that two words that are completely different in meaning can differ in a single, long or briefly pronounced letter.

For example:

Long and short vowels in German: basic rules

There are a whole bunch of rules on this topic that have one thing in common: it seems incredible to fit them in your head and apply them. Let's try to figure it out so that you remember most of it the first time! nine0003

Long and short vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables

Stress/unstress can be used as a basic rule for determining vowel length. Stressed vowels are usually long, unstressed - short. This dependency seems perfect! In fact both long and short vowels can be stressed or unstressed. When determining the length of a vowel, not only the stress is important, but also the openness/closedness of the syllable.

Long and short vowels in open and closed syllables

Depending on what letter the syllable ends with, it can be classified into one of three categories:

1. Open - end in a vowel (Ma | ma, Pa | pa)
open" when changing the form of the word, for example in the plural (Bal | kon - Bal | ko | ne)
2. Closed - end in a consonant (Klas | se, Mund)

Vowels in open and conditionally closed syllables are usually long . In closed - short. nine0008 To summarize: