3) Introduce Word Families For Simple CVC Words While acting out your scene, remember to emphasize the difference between the letters and keep sounding the vowels out clearly. Simply attach a printout of each letter onto a popsicle stick, and then let your imagination run wild!Ī can go to the store with E I can head out to the beach with O and so on.

To add some fun into your child’s learning, you might consider using stick puppets made with the five vowels. This is why it’s important to make the letters distinct. The example we used earlier of a child spelling “cet” instead of “cat” is pretty common, especially when you consider how similar the sounds are to each other. Still, it deserves its own emphasis because it can be easy for children to struggle with differentiating between the vowels. This point on our list is connected to the previous one. To help emphasize the differences between the letters, use a different color for each vowel.Īs your child feels and creates vowels, more of their senses will be engaged, and this will help them get familiar and comfortable with the five vowels and their sounds. The good news is that there are various tactics you can use to help your child remember their vowels.īesides sounding them out, you can also help your child create three-dimensional letters with something as easy and accessible as PlayDoh.

We recommend taking these one vowel at a time to avoid overwhelming your young learner. Teaching your child A, E, I, O, U is the first step in helping to familiarize them with vowels. Since short vowels have more consistent spelling, this is a great place to start when teaching your young learner. If you feel that your young learner is developmentally ready to start learning more about vowels, how can you help? Let’s take a look. This is why one of the most important signs showing that a child is ready to learn vowel sounds is when they can hear the vowel sounds in simple words.įor instance, let’s say your child tries to spell a simple CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) word like “cat.”Įven if they may misspell the word by writing “cet” instead of “cat,” this is still a beautiful moment, so celebrate it to the fullest because it indicates that your child can hear that there’s a letter between the C and the N. It’s challenging to teach your child vowel sounds if they cannot hear them.

When Is Your Child Ready To Learn Vowels? In a nutshell, learning vowels can be a monster!īut have no fear we’re here to help! We’ve compiled a step-by-step guide you can use to help your child finally connect the dots with both short and long vowel sounds. Then there’s the challenge of distinguishing between long and short vowels or two similar vowel sounds. To produce a vowel sound, you only need to adjust the shape of your mouth. With consonants, kids can feel the friction created while using their tongue, lips, or teeth to produce the sounds. One of the challenges with vowel sounds is that they can’t exactly be “felt” in the mouth. Most kids actually pick up consonant pronunciations much more quickly. It’s not uncommon for children to struggle with vowels.

Short vowel sounds list