How to Teach Vowel Sounds: Resources

Vowel sounds are a fundamental literacy skill.

Mastering vowel sounds is a fundamental reading skill that students should learn by the end of first grade. English vowels are more complex than in many languages, with each vowel having both a long and short sound. The Internet has many lesson plans with ideas for teaching children to master vowel sounds. There are also resources online that help teachers implement these lessons.

Things You'll Need

• "Hop on Pop" by Dr. Seuss
• Computer with Internet connection and speakers
• Computer projector
• Copies of "Pup in Cup" worksheet

Instructions

1. Read "Hop on Pop" to introduce the short "o" sound. After reading it once, discuss the short "o" sound. Then ask students to stand up. Read random pages of the book again, asking students to hop every time they hear the short "o" sound.

2. Discuss the short "u" sound. Pass out the "Pup in Cup" worksheet available from readwritethink (see References). Have students fill out the worksheet. Follow up the short o and u sounds by saying random short words. Instruct students to hop when they hear the short o sound and raise their arms to form a u when they hear the short u sound.

3. Connect your computer projector and navigate to StarFall. Click on ABCs from the left-hand side of the menu. Then click on an alphabet block with a vowel. A short movie will play demonstrating the upper and lower case forms of the words, along with the short vowel sound. Play the movies for all five vowels and discuss their sounds.

4. Play short vowel songs at Starfall. Return to the alphabet block page and click on the vowels in circles at the bottom of the page. Once the movie loads, an arrow will appear and point to the letter display in the corner of the movie preview. Click on the letter display to start the movie. A song will play demonstrating the short vowel sound in words. Play all the songs and review the short vowel sounds.

5. Teach long vowel sounds using poems and games available at the BBC website. The "Poem Pack" activities page includes colorful poems that are narrated and animated. Each one teaches a specific long vowel sound by focusing on one spelling, such as "oa" to teach the long o sound and "ee" and "ea" to teach the long e sound.

   More advanced long vowel sounds and spellings also have poems, including "oo" and "igh."

Tips & Warnings

• Frequent review is important as students learn their vowel sounds.

References

• ABC's--Letter and sound recognition
• ABC FAST Phonics - 11: Long and Short Vowels

Resources

• readwritethink: Teaching Short-Vowel Discrimination Using Dr. Seuss Rhymes
• Starfall
• BBC: Long Vowel Sounds