What Are Short Vowel Sounds?

The English language consists of five vowels in total. These include a, e, i, o, u. All of these vowels have specific sounds. They can be pronounced in two ways when used in words. They have two different sounds known as the long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds. Long vowel sounds are sounds that are pronounced exactly like the letter itself. However, a shorter version sound does not allow the letter to be pronounced like itself. Instead, it is pronounced in a different manner in the words.

For example, if we take the word "cup", it has a short vowel sound in it. This is because when you pronounce it, there is no sound of the long "U" in it. Most three lettered words have these sounds in it. It is not always necessary that the three lettered words would contain this sounds. However, they are the easiest examples that can be taught to children for their better understanding. It is also assumed that longer words would contain long vowel sounds. This is not true. Take the example of the word "business". Both "U" and "E" have short vowel sounds in it. These types of words are really helpful when it comes to reading words. They also help children in guessing the spellings of different words.

Short Vowel Sounds of A

- She acts for a living.

- The king was a mad person.

- I will take a nap now.

- We need a map for proper guidance.

Short Vowel Sounds of E

- I am going to bed.

- His leg was hurt.

- She wore a red dress.

- I have ten kittens.

Short Vowel Sounds of I

- Please throw this in the bin.

- We saw a pig.

- She had big eyes.

- His pens got lost.

Short Vowel Sounds of O

- His dog was aggressive.

- We got an invite.

- There is fog outside.

- Put the rod there.

Short Vowel Sounds of U

- Pass me the cup.

- We missed the bus.

- The jug was full.

- The rug got dirty.

How Do You Teach This Skill?

Having taught for over three decades, I can attest that three are more than a dozen different techniques to help students understand how these sounds are found in words. Let me take a minute of your time to share with you the most successful teaching methods for approaching this topic.

Picture Cues - This is critical, and I cannot stress this enough. If you want to engage students try to show them a picture that relates to the starting word. If you are on the a vowels put up a picture of an alligator or another picture that reinforces what you are working on. It gives students a mental place holder to ground them. If they get lost, you can always come back to the picture to help them along.

Hand Signals - I find this to be one of my most successful techniques in my bag of tricks for this unit. I have seen teachers use all types of different signals; you can choose your own. When you reinforce a sound with a physical gesture it sinks in for students much quicker. An example would be holding you hand around the bottom of your mouth when the doctor asks you to say ahh.

Vowel Sticks - Have the students draw a picture to model each sound with letter written on the bottom. You can do this on any thick form of paper. I find the blank side of thick note cards to be helpful. Take that card and glue it to on end of a popsicle stick. You can then as a class review the sounds of certain words and have students raise their stick to match the sound. This is an engaging activity and something you can make a regular routine until the entire class has mastered it.

How Do You Write Short Vowel Sounds?

What are They?

Short vowel words refer to a word that does not allow the vowel in that word to make a long vowel sound. In other words, a word in which a vowel does not make a long sound is a short vowel word. An example of this type of word can be "bug" because it does not emphasize a long 'U' sound. These words can be three letter words or words that have more than three letters.

Writing Short Vowel Words

In spoken English, it is easy to identify short vowel word, but this may not be the case in writing which is why there is a need to identify short vowel words with a distinctive symbol. For short vowel words, you can add a short smiley over the vowel to show the reader that it has a short sound so that they may correctly pronounce the word. This mark is known as the breve mark and can be described as a u-shaped mark placed on top of the letter.

But to write down short vowel sound, you need to have slash marks before and after the short vowel letter. This means that if you identify 'alligator' as a short vowel word, then you will write the letter as ă and the sound /ă/. Similarly, for the word 'eggs', ĕ is the letter of choice and this sound can be written as /ĕ/, for 'umbrella' the choice sound can be written as /ŭ/ and for the word 'octopus' the prized letter will have a breve on top, ŏ, and the vowel sound will be written within slash marks /ŏ/.