Your child will practice recognizing short and long vowel sounds in words, and create a collage of pictures that have the same vowel sound.
Learning Area(s): Language and Communication; Reading and Writing
MATERIALS
- large piece of cardstock or construction paper
- newspapers, magazines, advertisements, or printed pictures from the internet
- child-safe scissors
- glue or tape
- marker
LET'S PLAY
Sitting together at the table, choose a short or long vowel sound (see Tips below). You may want to start with the first vowel you hear in your child’s name or another vowel in a word that the child chooses. Review with your child the sound that the vowel makes. Using a marker, have your child write the uppercase and lowercase letters in the center of the page.
Next, help your child find and cut out pictures of items that have the chosen vowel sound in them, and glue them to the paper. For example, if your child chooses the long E, ask your child, “Which pictures have the long E sound (like in eagle) in them?” They might cut out pictures of beans, a bee, a puppy, and others. As your child chooses each picture, emphasize the vowel sound heard in the word and have your child repeat it. The vowel sound might be at the beginning of the word as in ear, in the middle as in wheel, or at the end as in party.
Encourage your child to try to write the name of each picture after they cut it out. If your child needs help, you can help write or spell parts of the word, and then ask your child to read it to you. When finished, display your child’s work for everyone to see!
TIPS
- What follows are examples of words with short and long vowel sounds (hint: a long vowel “says its name,” meaning the sound when you name the letter O is the same as the sound in the word no).
| short vowel sound | long vowel sound | |
| a | apple, mat | ape, cake |
| e | egg, pet | evil, me |
| i | igloo, sit | ice, bike |
| o | octopus, mom | open, soap |
| u | umbrella, sun | use, huge |
- You can spell the vowel sound using different letter combinations. For kindergarteners, do not worry about how to spell the word, just focus on how the vowel sounds. For first and second graders, you might point out the different ways to write each vowel sound (for example: e, ee, ea, y, ie).
- To challenge your child, have them look for pictures of words with either the long vowel sound or the short vowel sound. Then they can sort the pictures by short or long vowel sounds.