Long Vowels Say Their Name
Once children can recognize short vowel sounds, learning long vowel sounds is the next step in a sequential phonics program. Reading long vowel words is more challenging because there are many ways to spell each long vowel sound. For example, the words safe, sail, and say all contain the long a sound, but use different spelling patterns for the long vowel sound. In Unit Four, children will learn some spelling rules that will make decoding long vowel words easier.

In the 18 lessons in this unit, children will learn:

• The long vowel sounds of a, e, i, o, and u
• The relationship between silent e and long vowel sounds
  (cake, bike, pole)
• That side-by-side vowels often make a long vowel sound (neat, pie, coat)
• How to identify and read simple words with long vowel sounds

The language activities in each lesson encourage active exploration of consonant and long vowel sounds. In doing so, children will gain experience in combining letter sounds in an entertaining game format. Ultimately, they will be able to apply this knowledge as they are introduced to more and more words in order to increase their reading vocabulary.

The Long Vowel unit includes:

• 18 Lesson Cards with a variety of games, activities, and follow-up quizzes for each long vowel sound
• 18 Pretest/Posttest assessment pages, one for each lesson