Long and Short Vowels

Lessons 1 - 12

What:

There are five primary letters that are vowels: a, e, i, o, u.

Each vowel can make a long sound or a short sound. The long vowel sound is the same sound as the name of the letter. The short sound is a special sound that has to be learned.

Therefore, the five vowels comprise 10 vowel sounds.

Why:

Every word and/or syllable must have at least one vowel.

Without automatic recognition of vowels and the associated long or short sound, the student will not be able to phonetically decode words at a fluent rate. The ability to comprehend written material decreases if analysis and/or hesitation for each sound and/or word are slow.

When:

Since each word or syllable must have a vowel, learning to recognize the vowel letters, the vowel sounds, and the rules that make the sounds long or short, needs to be introduced very early in a reading program. My Breakfast Reading Program introduces the vowel letters, vowel sounds and rules in Lesson #1.

How:

Repetition, repetition, repetition!

My Breakfast Reading Program presents all five vowel letters and the associated ten vowel sounds in each lesson. Each lesson consists of one to three 60-second exercise. This exercise provides a high number of repetitions in a very short time frame. Each lesson is repeated five days a week.

Statistical Analysis: Discussion of pattern analysis, probabilities and the simplification of rules for phonetic analysis:

Many reading programs focus on phonemic families or rimes, such as “at” (bat, fat, hat, sat) and “ate” (fate, gate, late, mate). Other reading programs focus on “cvc or cvvc” patterns ( bat = cvc boat = cvvc).

My Breakfast Reading Program focuses on probabilities in developing exercises for phonetic analysis. My Breakfast Reading Program utilizes a database with 2290 phonograms (single syllable words).

Based on the analysis of this database, there are 46 “cvc” patterns. This is difficult for students to remember the various patterns and how they are related to phonetic rules. Analysis of the database also indicates that there are 281 phonemic families or rimes (“at”, “ate”). Again, this is very difficult for the student to remember.

My Breakfast Reading Program analyzes the database based on vowel sound families. Table 1 is a Pivot Table analysis of the 2290 word database.

Table 1 : Vowel Sound Family Analysis

Vowel Sound Family - Example	Data	Total	% Within Sound Family	% Within Total Count
long - cake, peach, pie, toast, mule	Count of Vowel family	750		33%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	635	85%
short – cat, hen, I, dog, u	Count of Vowel family	1099		48%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	1032	94%
R controlled – car, herd, bird, for, fur	Count of Vowel family	213		9%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	115	54%
ow – cow, round	Count of Vowel family	81		4%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
aw – paw, caught, fall, fought	Count of Vowel family	70		3%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
oy – boy, boil	Count of Vowel family	21		1%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
oo long – use, soup	Count of Vowel family	11		0%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
u 2 dot – new, blue, cute	Count of Vowel family	31		1%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
u 1 dot – bull, would	Count of Vowel family	6		0%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
oo - look	Count of Vowel family	4		0%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
short oo - sure	Count of Vowel family	4		0%
	Sum of LS Vowel Rule	0	0%
Total Count of Vowel Sound Family		2290		100%
Total Sum of LS Vowel Rule		1782		90%

Note that there are only 10 vowel sound families that the student needs to remember. Further analysis indicates that 81% (1849) of the 2290 words are within two of the vowel sound families. The two vowel sound families are long (33% or 750) and short (48% or 1099).

In designing the database, an indicator was used to identify words that would adhere to the rule of one vowel is short and two vowels are long. The Sum of LS Vowel Rule in the table illustrates this.

Using the LS Vowel Rule indicator, analysis indicates that 85% of the words in the long vowel sound family adhere to the two vowels is long rule. In addition, 94% of the short vowel sound words adhere to the one vowel is short rule.

Using the breakfast food analogy, it is easy for students to remember pancakes (one vowel = cook one side at a time) as short vowel sounds and waffles (two vowels = cook two sides at a time) as long vowel sounds.

Exercise Materials: Layout and Instructions

Exercise #2 – Vowel Sounds Lessons 1 - 12

1 - cat

2 - cake

1 - hen

2 - peach

1 - fish

2 - pie

1 - dog

2 - toast

1 - duck

2 - mule

Exercise #2.a: Long Vowel Sound

This is a 60 second timed exercise. The teacher tells the student that they are going to say the long vowel sounds. During the first 30 seconds, the teacher randomly points to a vowel and says the long sound. The student immediately says the sound. Start out with a three second interval between sounds and quickly work up to a rate of one sound per second by the end of the 30 seconds.

During the second 30 seconds, the teacher randomly points to a vowel. The student attempts to say the sound. After a brief hesitation, the teacher says the sound, regardless if the student named, misnamed or couldn’t name the sound. Start out with a three second interval between sounds and quickly work up to a rate of one word per second by the end of the 30 seconds.

It is encouraged if the student and teacher can develop a rhythm that allows them to say the sounds in unison.

Exercise #2.b: Short Vowel Sound

This exercise is the same as #2.a, except the short vowel sound is used.

Exercise #3: Count the Vowels, Say the Vowel Rule, Say the Vowel Sound

pat	load	pad	bed	bit	bud	pod
bid	beet	lit	pot	bade	but	lid
paste	bait	boat	lode	lid	lied	bid

Exercise #3: This is a 30 second drill. The student is to work left to right. For each word, the student says three things: How many vowels, long or short (waffle or pancake) and the actual vowel sound. For example, for the first word, the student says “1”, “short”, “a”.