Awareness of Long and Short Vowels

Phonemic awareness: Let's learn long and short vowels!

Concept/topic

Building phonemic awareness requires recognizing the similarities and the differences between the sounds of different words, both in isolation and in context.

Lesson goals/objectives

To enable students to recognize the different sounds of the same letters.

Standards

"AZ R01-S1C2-05- Distinguish between long and short vowel sounds in orally stated single-syllable words (bit/bite)" ("English in a Flash," 2015).

Required materials

A white board with markers and an eraser

A relatively simple picture book with which the children are familiar such as Clifford the Big Red Dog

Old magazines to cut out and paste

Paste

Crayons and other writing implements

Introduction / anticipatory set

Students will be asked to identify what words have long and short vowel sounds based upon their innate sense of how these words sound aloud, versus how they appear on the page. They will be asked to break down a story with which they are familiar into different sounds, allowing them to use their previous knowledge of and familiarity with the story to identify this point of phonetic awareness.

Step-by-step procedures

At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher will make a list of different words, grouping words based upon their vowel sounds such as ate, plate, bar; oar, core, bore, and store; zoo, two, and cool. They will also be asked to differentiate words that have the same vowels when written on the page but different sounds when spoken aloud such as apple and hay or store and open.

The teacher will create lists for all of the long and the short vowel sounds of different words. After students begin to differentiate between the long and short sounds of the vowels a, e, i, o, u (and sometimes y), the teacher will then read a story aloud to the class, pausing between sentences. The students will be asked to identify if the critical words in the story are long or short vowel sounds.

After the story is read aloud, students will be given an individual assignment. Each student will be able to select a piece of construction paper in his or her desired color. The paper will be divided into ten sections, one labeled long a, the next labeled short a, followed by long and short e, etcetera. Students will be able to select pictures based upon personal preference from a box of old magazines and be asked to find a series of images (their choice) which have the different letter sounds. They will use safety scissors and glue to cut out and paste the pictures. They will also be able to decorate the collage in the manner that they choose with magic markers, crayons, and pencils.

After the student completes the collage, he or she will be asked to present the artwork to the class and say the names of the different objects he or she included in the collage. The teacher will keep a running list of those words on the white board. Corrections will be made if there are any mistakes. The collages will eventually be displayed in the classroom after the students have finished the assignment

Technology integration

As well as using old magazines, students can also use the Internet to search out different pictures of images they find interesting and print them out.