How to Teach Long Vowel Sounds: FREE Word Lists & Activities

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Teaching long vowel sounds can be challenging, but with the right strategies, you can help your struggling readers achieve fluency. Whether you’re a reading teacher or a homeschooling parent, understanding and effectively teaching these sounds is crucial to your students’ reading development.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Tips for teaching the long vowel sounds

Teach one or just a few spelling patterns at a time!

I don’t mean one vowel sound, but just one-three spelling patterns. 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 4+ spelling patterns together, even though they make the same sound, if you’re working with struggling readers.

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 1-3 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]

Free Download: Long Vowel Word Lists

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.

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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