2. When to Teach Short Vowel Sounds

In the continuum we are using at Reading Universe, we teach all the letter names and sounds first, then take some additional time to focus more intently on the short vowels. This serves as reinforcement for these important sounds.

If you are here and you have not yet taught all the letter names and sounds, including short vowels, go back to the letter names and sounds skill explainer.  

The next skill explainer, which comes after your students have had lots of practice reading and spelling with short vowels, explicitly teaches about closed-syllable words. It’s critical that students master their short vowel sounds as they begin decoding closed syllables.

Grade Level

We initially introduce short vowels in kindergarten and continue practicing them through first grade and beyond. 

If students in upper grades struggle with identifying, reading, or spelling short vowel sounds, we must take time to explicitly teach these skills and offer practice until students have mastered them.

Prerequisite Skills

Students should be working simultaneously to build strong phonemic awareness skills as they master short vowel sounds. The ability to blend and segment phonemes orally is linked to proficient reading. 

Before you spend time reinforcing short vowel sounds, at a minimum students should already be able to:

• Identify upper and lowercase letters
• Name the vowels - ‘a’, ‘e’ , ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’
• Identify some consonant sounds (so that we can start building words for reading and spelling)