Identifying long and short vowel sounds is a necessary phonological awareness skill your students need to be able to sound out and spell words.  

But it doesn’t have to be dull! 

With our Long and Short Vowels Task Cards, students will be able to use picture and word cards to practice telling apart words with short and long vowel sounds.

Practice Differentiating Short Vowel Sounds and Long Vowel Sounds

This download includes 2 versions of this game, depending on your students’ reading proficiency and ability to distinguish between short and long vowel sounds:

• Word cards
• Picture cards

To play, the students will use a blue manipulative to cover words with short vowel sounds and a red manipulative to cover words with long vowel sounds. 

This resource can be used as a reading center activity to practice distinguishing between long and short vowel sounds. This resource can also be used for individual instruction and with your guided reading groups.  

Even More Ways to Identify Words with Short and Long Vowel Sounds

Take this vowel sounds identification game even further with additional activities to get your students engaged and excited about reading! 

Yes, And…

As an additional challenge, have students name another object with the long and short vowel sounds on the cards. 

Rhyme Time

Prompt students to start building word families! After identifying which words have short and long vowel shoulds, have the student sort words that rhyme into groups, writing them on a separate piece of paper. For example, if a student were to sort the words from the Long /a/ Short /a/ card into rhyming words: 

• Cat, bat, hat
• Pan, fan
• Lake, rake, cake, snake
• Skate, plate
• Tape, grape

Then, they can share their lists with a partner to read.

Group Review

This activity works best if your class is working on learning the short and long sounds for 1 vowel at a time (a, e, i, o, or u). After your lesson, use your smartboard or another projection device to present a vowel task card for students to see. Go through each of the words on the card and have the students identify whether the sound is long or short using choral response.

Change the Difficulty Level if Needed

If your students are using the picture task cards, challenge them in writing the words on a whiteboard or piece of paper.

For students who are struggling with the content, encourage them to use a visual reminder of the letter sounds, such as an alphabet chart that includes vowel sounds.

Easily Prepare This Resource for Your Students

Print the task cards on cardstock for added durability and longevity. Place all game parts in a folder or large envelope for easy access. 

Before You Download

Use the drop-down icon on the Download button to choose between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource. 

---

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a teacher in Michigan and a Teach Starter Collaborator. 

 

We’ve got more long and short vowel identification activities where that came from! Check out a few teacher AND student favorites below: 

[resource:4697919]   [resource:4697814]   [resource:2654934]