Teach Long Vowel Sounds
When should you teach long vowel sounds? After alphabetic principle and 3 simple consonant digraphs ‘ch’ spells /ch/, ‘sh’ spells /sh/ and the voiced and unvoiced ‘th’ digraphs. ‘Th’ voiced /th/ and ‘th’ as in ‘them’ (t-h-e-m) and unvoiced spells /th/ as in ‘thin’ (t-h-i-n).
What Are Long Vowel Sounds? Long vowel digraphs are the spellings for long vowel sounds. Long vowel digraphs have a different spelling pattern than the superhero silent e, also called a split digraph,, so these should be separate phonics lessons.
Need a refresh? Listen to the episode on teaching the long u vowel team in episode 44, ‘Shying Away from These Vowel Teams? 5 TIPS to Confidently Teach Long ‘u’ at Home’ and superhero ‘e’ in episode 33, ‘First Grader Still Reading CVC Words? 5 Tips to Unlock the Power of Superhero Silent E!’
What makes teaching long vowel sounds an advanced phonics skill? Spelling! As a former K-2 teacher, I wish that there was ONE WAY to spell the long ‘e’ sound! Can you recall at least two ways to spell the long /e/ sound in a word, separate from words with a super-silent-e spelling?
‘Ea’ spells long /e/ in the word ‘eat’, ‘ee’ spells long /e/ in the word ‘sleep’, ‘ey’ spells long e, usually at the end of a word, like in the word ‘hockey’, ‘y’ spells long e at the end of a word, like in the word ‘happy’. Remember, these are all spelling for long ‘e’ aside from word with the long /e/ that use the super-hero silent e spelling pattern, such as in the name ‘Pete’, ‘eve’, them and delete.
Why teach long vowel sounds as a more complex phonics skill? When you’ve taught your child the ‘a’ spells /a/, ‘e’ spells /e/, then show them and e and an a together and tell them this vowel team spells long /e/, well, we are asking your child to remember and apply more complex phonics skills. There is no longer 1:1 correspondence between a letter symbol and sound, phoneme, like when learning the alphabetic principle.
HOW do I teach long vowel sounds? Teach two spellings for one long vowel digraph each week. So, this phonics skill will take you several weeks to teach, review and reinforce over several weeks. Do not rush through modeling and having your child practice multiple spellings for long vowel digraphs.
Teach long vowel sounds by teaching positionality. ‘Y’ spells long /e/ at the end of a word, like in the word ‘happy’. ‘Ey’ also spells long /e/ at the end of a word, like in hockey or monkey. The ‘ee’ long vowel digraph usually comes in the middle of a word, like in sleep and seek.
The ‘ea’ long vowel digraph for the long ‘e’ usually comes at the beginning or the middle of a word, like in the words ‘eat’ and ‘seat’. Teaching positionality applies to teaching all long vowel digraphs with your child.
Want to learn simple phonics skills, so that you can teach your child to read with confidence? I can help!
