Vowel Sounds

When teaching vowel sounds, we should take the following aspects into consideration into our teaching:

1.  First, be sure you are teaching the correct sound for each vowel.  Sounds simple, but several of the vowels sound very similar and this can be tricky.  If you have volunteers working with your students, be sure they are also teaching the correct letter sounds.  Visit the “Learn“ section of this blog and view the Teaching Short Vowels video to learn the correct pronunciation of the short vowel sounds.

2.  Use picture cues and key words to cue the correct vowel sound.  Picture cues can be placed in the classroom and on the student’s desks.

Click HERE to download free key word picture cues to use in your classroom and for individual students.

3.  Use hand signals for each vowel sound.  More than any other strategy, I find teaching hand signals to be highly effective in having the students learn the correct sound.  This way students are immediately cued into the correct pronunciation of the vowel sound.  The Teaching Short Vowels  may be helpful.

4.  Provide frequent opportunities for students to practice short vowel sounds.  “Vowel Intensives” is a strategy that I learned during my Phonics First training and find very helpful in teaching short vowel sounds.  Using this strategy, students are given vowel sticks with either the key word or the letter and are required to hold up the correct vowel stick when the teacher provides the vowel sound.  You can differentiate the activity by deciding which vowels to work with, how many vowels and by either providing just the vowel sound or a CVC word.

Click HERE to download the free pictures and letters to create your own vowel sticks.

You may also find the following video useful when teaching vowels