Practicing Vowels

Hi everyone! Today I'm doing a post all about vowels. It's so important to help our students master those first vowel sounds before adding in all the other phonics rules. The first thing I want to recommend is using this free vowel bookmark:

You can find it HERE. 

I have my students sing a little jingle to help them remember. For example, "Apple, apple, /a/, /a/, /a/." They tap their fingers while they sing it. We sing our vowel jingle for each vowel every day. Then if a student reads a word using the wrong vowel song, then I have them point to the correct sound on the vowel bookmark. For example, if the word is pen and they say pin,  I would have them point to e and sing, "Eddie, Eddie, /e/ /e/ /e/ then read the word again. (Eddie is the name of our elephant.) Below are some other activities that I use to practice vowels.

I posted a video on Instagram a few weeks ago showing my Fill a Word in action. I meant to blog about it sooner, but I got sidetracked. :) Story of my life! This is one of my favorite ways to practice and review vowels. This is simple to prep for, which is always nice!

Here's a little video to show how it works:

Click on the picture above to see the video

I give each student a vowel on a math counter. They all have the same worksheet with the vowel missing. They read each word with the vowel they have. Then they switch to use another vowel. Simple, quick, fun. It's great practice for them and a quick snapshot assessment for me. 

You certainly do NOT have to buy anything to do this though! For one, you could also make your own by just drawing it out on a piece of paper. Just leave a little circle for them to drop the vowel in. 

I also do quickies during guided reading. All you need is a sticky note.

Put up some chart paper like this and use any ol' popsicle stick to fill in the vowels. In this picture we are working on a vowel pair. I have little popsicle sticks with all the vowels. Sometimes I'll have a student come up and read a word with three different vowel sticks. This is a great whole class lesson. 

 Like I said, I love having meaningful activities that are quick and simple!You can use it anytime AND it's a great informal assessment. 


If you would like 50 pages of these "Fill a Word sheets to use throughout the year, check this out in my store:

Here is a one page FREEBIE to try it out. These can all be short a words OR you can throw in some other vowels to make some real and nonsense words. 

I also have this activity below from my Super Reader pack that my students love!

Before they read the word, they use this Free vowel bookmark  to remind themselves of the vowel sound. Many of the cards make several different words.

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