Phonics - Vowel Sounds

Here is a collection of worksheets and games for reviewing the long a vowel sound. There's a classroom scavenger hunt, word sort activity, cut-and-glue projects, worksheets, and word wheels.

These printable phonics worksheets focus on writing and reading words with the long a vowel sound. This collection includes color-and-read minibooks, reading sliders, printable card games, worksheets, and phonics learning centers.

These files focus on differentiating between the short a and long a sounds.

Here you have a variety of printable worksheets and games for teaching students about the short e sound. There are reading and writing worksheets, as well as learning centers that involve cutting and gluing.

This page contains a collection of long e printables. Includes flashcards, reading strips, games, as well as several cut-and-paste projects.

The worksheets in this section have students determining the differences between words with a long e sound and a short e sound.

Phonics worksheets that focus on words that have a short i vowel sound. These sheets include simple words, such as: hit, in, kit, did, sit, win, and kid.

This pages has a variety of printable worksheets, games, and activities to help students recognize words with the long i vowel sound. These pages include words like: ice, fine, cry, fly, kind, mine, try, high, and buy.

This page has printable worksheets to help students discern and understand the differences between words with a long i vowel sound and words with a short i vowel sound.

Phonics worksheets that focus on words with the short o sound. Print out cut and glue activities, word wheels, games, and more. Words include: pot, box, rock, dot, and clock.

Students will learn about words that have a long o vowel sound with these worksheets. Some of the words in this section include: row, home, snow, code, goat, and boat.

Check out the worksheets in this section that feature words with both short o and long o sounds.

Printable phonics worksheets that focus on words with the short u vowel sounds.

Try out the printable word wheels, cut-and-glue activities, and other worksheets to practice reading words that have the long u sound. Some of the words include: unicorn, music, use, and unicycle.

The printable phonics worksheets on this page feature words with the long u sound and words with the short u sound.

These resources cover words with the long-e sound, spelled with the letters ee and ea. Words in this set include feet, meat, leaf, clear, and green.

These printables cover words with oo in them. The letters oo can make two vowel sounds. Short-oo is the vowel sound you hear in words like book and floor. The long-oo sounds is heard in words like school and moon.

Learn about OI and OY words with these wheels, flashcards, sliders, and activity sheets.

Learn about the /ow/ sound, spelled with the diphthongs ow and ou. This page includes a mini-book and several worksheets.

These files can help you teach students about the vowel sound in words like car, mark, arm, and far. There's a mini-book, a sorting game, and a word search.

Phonics worksheets for consonant letters sounds, including beginning consonants and ending consonants.

Find worksheets, flash cards, and word wheels for teaching r-controlled vowel sounds. These sounds include /är/ as in star, /ôr/ as in short, /ûr/ as in bird, /âr/ as in hair, and /îr/ as in deer.

We have dozens of word family units. Word families are collections of words with the same ending. For example: -ar words (car, far, star)

Printable activities, flash cards, and word wheels for the Dolch sight words.

Spin the wheel to make new words.  Manipulative read-and-spell phonics activities.

Phonics instruction on English’s complex vowel sounds is a key aspect of early English Language Arts (ELA) education. It begins in kindergarten and continues as a primary focus through the early elementary grades. Students first learn to recognize the short and long sounds of vowels (a, e, i, o, u). They practice sounding out words and basic decoding skills, associating patterns like open and closed syllables with long and short vowel sounds respectively. As they progress, students encounter more complex phonics concepts: vowel digraphs (where two vowels produce one sound, like the long a "ai" in "rain" or long or short e "ea" in "read"), r-controlled vowels (where vowels followed by the letter "r" make a sound distinct from either long or short, such as "ar" in "car" or "or" in "corn"), and more advanced diphthongs (sometimes called gliding vowels for the way the mouth shifts while producing a single-syllable vowel sound, such as the “au” in “caught” or “oy” in “joy”).

Teachers use various methods to help students learn about vowels and their sounds. Direct phonics instruction—where students are explicitly taught vowel sounds and their associated spelling patterns—is an essential component. Teachers also often use visual aids, such as vowel charts or letter tiles, to help students identify vowel patterns and practice blending sounds. Hands-on activities like matching games, vowel sorting, and flashcard review make phonics learning more engaging; songs, rhymes, and word families sorts make it more memorable. Reading activities that focus on decoding words with specific vowel patterns also help reinforce these skills. Guided reading sessions are great for emphasizing vowel recognition, as teachers can draw students’ attention to the different vowel sounds they encounter within texts.

Phonics instruction that emphasizes vowel sounds is a critical step in helping young learners become confident and proficient readers. It helps students confidently decode unfamiliar words, improves their spelling accuracy, and enhances their overall reading fluency—foundational components of all literacy skills, from reading comprehension to self-expression through writing. Super Teacher Worksheets provides multiple free vowel worksheets and activities to help get your students on the path to phonics success!