9. Resource Hub: Teaching Short Vowel Sounds
Short Vowels Skill Explainer
Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension
Assessment
The process of measuring students' progress and providing information to help guide instruction
(active)
Word Recognition
The ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it
Phonological Awareness
A group of skills that enable you to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words
Articulation
The production of speech sounds.
Articulation Skill Explainer
Syllables
Part of a word organized around a single vowel sound
Onset-Rime
Two parts of a word: onset is the initial sound; rime is the vowel and any consonant sounds that follow it.
Phonemic Awareness
The ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds within a spoken word
Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- Overview of Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- When to Teach Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- How to Teach Segmentation and Blending
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- Assessing Your Students
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Phoneme Segmentation & Blending
(active)
Phonics
A method for teaching children the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters so they can learn to decode and encode
Sound-Letter Correspondence
The relationship between a phoneme and the grapheme that spells it
Letter Names and Sounds Skill Explainer
- Overview of Letter Names and Sounds
- When to Teach Letter Names and Sounds
- How to Teach Letter Names and Sounds
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Letter Names and Sounds
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
(active)Phonics Patterns
Common letter combinations found in words.
Short Vowels Skill Explainer
- Overview of Short Vowel Sounds
- When to Teach Short Vowel Sounds
- How to Teach Short Vowel Sounds
- Videos: See it in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Teaching Short Vowels
- Student Practice Activities with Short Vowels
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
- Overview of Closed Syllables
- When to Teach Closed Syllables
- How to Teach Closed Syllables
- Lesson Plans for Teaching Closed Syllables
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
- Overview of Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- When to Teach Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- How to Teach Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- Lesson Plans for Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
- Overview of the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- When to Teach the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- How to Teach the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Soft 'c' and Soft 'g' Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
R-Controlled Vowels Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Vowel Teams and Dipthongs Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
'-tch' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
'-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Consonant '-le' Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Schwa Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words
High-frequency words that have a part of their spelling that has to be memorized
Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words
Multisyllable Words
Words that have more than one word part
Prefixes
How to add meaningful beginnings to words
Suffixes
How to add meaningful endings to words
Language Comprehension
The ability to understand the meaning of spoken words
Reading Comprehension
The ability to understand the meaning of printed text
Text Considerations
Characteristics of a text that impact the ease or difficulty of comprehension.
Strategies and Activities
How a reader approaches a specific text, depending on their purpose for reading
Reader’s Skill and Knowledge
The skills and knowledge a reader brings to the reading task that are necessary for comprehension
Sociocultural Context
Elements in a classroom that affect how well a child learns to read
Fluency
The ability to read accurately with automaticity and expression
Fluency: Accuracy, then Automaticity
Reading or decoding words correctly (accuracy) and reading at an appropriate rate (automaticity)
Accuracy, then Automaticity Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Fluency: Expressive Text Reading
Reading characterized by accuracy with automaticity and expression
Expressive Text Reading Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
Writing
The act of putting thoughts into print using transcription and composition skills
Handwriting, Spelling, and Typing
Methods for translating speech into written words
Handwriting and Letter Formation Skill Explainer
Sentence Writing
Composing a complete statement, question, exclamation, or idea with proper grammar and punctuation
Writing a Simple Sentence Skill Explainer
Sentence Expansion Skill Explainer
- Overview of Sentence Expansion
- When to Teach Sentence Expansion
- How to Teach Sentence Expansion
- Video: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plan for Sentence Expansion
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Features of Structured Literacy
A systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading based on research
Here are links to all of the teaching resources in this skill explainer as well as additional activities for your classroom. Please use them freely and share them with your colleagues.
Videos
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Antonio Fierro: Build-A-Word strategy is a strategy that helps students spell words with a new pattern they are learning. Using the routine that I'm going to model for you, students practice recognizing that connection between that phoneme and that grapheme. Let me show you what we can do, and I'm going to use a closed syllable word, right? The word is mop. What's the word? Mop. "I use the mop to clean the floor." Let's go ahead and tap the number of phonemes or identify the phonemes in the word "mop." /m/, /ǒ/, /p/. Wonderful. Let's go ahead and put it here on the board. /m/, /ǒ/, /p/. All right. This first phoneme is /m/. Hmm. Which grapheme represents that sound? "M." What about this one? /ǒ/. Which grapheme represents that sound? "O." Right? "O." And my final phoneme is /p/. Hmm. I think, we know it's the "p," right? Mop. Mop. Let's go ahead and write it. Mop. Mop. Right.
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Morgan Walton: These are the motions we use to help students remember tricky vowel sounds. /o͞o/, ooze, /o͝o/, book, /oi/, oink, /ou/, house.
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Fadia Olrich: So, the roller coaster strategy helps us figure out the sounds in words, especially the middle vowel sound, because sometimes that gets a little tricky, doesn't it? So, we're going to use our roller coaster strategy to help us with those sounds. So, watch this first word. This word is met. Say met.
Students: Met.
Ms. Orlich: So, watch what I do. I'm going to start at the bottom of the roller coaster.
Ms. Orlich and students: /m/, /ĕ/, /t/. Met.
Ms. Orlich: Good.
Additional Videos
Quick Look: Blending Words with Short Vowels
Teaching the Short ‘u’ Sound: Full Lesson
Blending Sounds to Read Words with Short Vowels
Helping English Learners with Short 'i' and Short 'e'
Dictating Sentences with Short 'i' and Short 'e'
Fluency Practice: Reading Phrases with Short 'i' and Short 'e'
Student Practice
Short 'a' Roll & Read (opens in new window)
Short 'e' Roll & Read (opens in new window)
Short 'i' Roll & Read (opens in new window)
Short 'o' Roll & Read (opens in new window)
Short 'u' Roll & Read (opens in new window)
Mixed Short Vowels: Sorting Cards (opens in new window)
Alien Talk: Practicing Short Vowels (opens in new window)
Elkonin Boxes for Short Vowels (opens in new window)
Read Sheets
Short 'a' Read Sheet with CVC Words (opens in new window)
Short 'a' Read Sheet: Words and Sentences (opens in new window)
Short 'e' Read Sheet with CVC Words (opens in new window)
Short 'e' Read Sheet: Words and Sentences (opens in new window)
Short 'i' Read Sheet with CVC Words (opens in new window)
Short 'i' Read Sheet: Words and Sentences (opens in new window)
Short 'o' Read Sheet with CVC Words (opens in new window)
Short 'o' Read Sheet: Words and Sentences (opens in new window)
Short 'u' Read Sheet With CVC Words (opens in new window)
Short 'u' Read Sheet: Words and Sentences (opens in new window)
Mixed Short Vowel Read Sheet: Words and Sentences (opens in new window)
Decodable Texts
Mac the Cat (opens in new window)
Val the Rat (opens in new window)
The Red Hen (opens in new window)
The Pen (opens in new window)
A Wig in the Pit (opens in new window)
A Rip in the Bag (opens in new window)
The Big Job (opens in new window)
The Hot Pot (opens in new window)
The Fun Gig (opens in new window)
A Box of Hats (opens in new window)
Pals on the Bus (opens in new window)
Zed the Cat (opens in new window)
Lesson Planning Materials
Lesson Plan for Focusing on Short 'a' (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan for Focusing on Short 'e' (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan for Focusing on Short 'i' (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan for Focusing on Short 'o' (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan for Focusing on Short 'u' (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan for Mixed Short Vowels (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan Template for Short Vowels (opens in new window)
Lesson Checklist for Focusing on a Specific Short Vowel (opens in new window)
Vowel Flash Cards without Pictures
Vowel Flash Cards with Pictures
List of Words for Lesson Planning
Short Vowel Word List (opens in new window)
Roller Coaster Sheets for Dictation and Segmenting
Roller Coaster Dictation Sheet (opens in new window)
Roller Coaster Chart for Segmenting (opens in new window)
Dictation Sheet (Grades 1-5) (opens in new window)
Vowel Valley
Vowel Valley PDF (opens in new window)
Assessment
Assessment: Short Vowels in Reading and Spelling (opens in new window)
Planning a Phonics Lesson
Phonics Lesson Checklist
Lesson Plan Template (opens in new window)
