Spelling long vowels can be tricky. I’ve studied about this for years. I’ve told this to kids in my classroom and then to those students I tutored in reading. But now I’m living it and telling it to my own 3rd grade son. We’ve worked through reading the long vowel patterns, but spelling them has been a whole different story. Long vowels are easy to hear, but which way do you spell them? Is it bote or boat? And then to make it a little more difficult, you have homophones like made and maid or rode and road.
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Kids in this stage of development are called Within Word Pattern Spellers, according to Words Their Way. This is the stage where they’ve got the short vowel spellings; they just don’t always have the patterns of the long vowels when they spell words, especially as early to mid-Within Pattern Spellers. This is where my son is and has been since the end of first grade. While he can read them all, he does not demonstrate a solid understanding of them in his spellings.
Spelling Strategies for Words with Multiple Spellings
One of the biggest spelling strategies kids need to work on in this stage of spelling development is:
Does it look right? If you can across that word in your reading, is that how it would be spelled?
Kids at this stage begin to really pick up on reading and come across lots of words in books that they can read. So, when they spell a word incorrectly (such as TRAID for trade), ask him, “Does that look right to you?”
Long Vowels Roll-a-Word Activity
I designed this long vowels activity {free download at the end of this post} with this kind speller in mind. ALuv played a couple of rounds this week and it served as a good reminder to look at word spellings and think, “Does that look right?”
First, I picked 6 long a and 6 long o vowel patterns out (because that’s what he’s been working through over the last month in our word sorts). I then chose 6 beginning sound cards to go with each vowel. Some were single letters and some were blends. I printed them onto card stock. These were inserted into our Photo Stacking blocks {an amazing and hands-on tool for any subject. You can see how we’ve used them here, here, or here}.
He chose the long a stacking blocks first. He rolled them, read the word by putting the beginning and ending blocks together, and wrote the word on the left-side column of the recording sheet. If he happened to roll the same word again, he re-rolled until a new word was formed.
After he was finished with the list, together we went through the words one by one. He read each word and then we discussed whether it was real or not. We even discussed multiple meanings (such as brake and break). Then, we took it a step further {this part is VERY important–don’t skip it}. We discussed whether the word was spelled correctly or not. If it wasn’t spelled correctly, he crossed it out and then he spelled it correctly beside it {FADE instead of FAID}.
We plan on using more of the patterns within our pack on future long vowel patterns. Soon, I hope to share yet another long vowel pack with you that we’ve been working through! Woohoo!
More Spelling Ideas:
Got a younger child? Download the Short Vowels Roll a Word Activity from Free Homeschool Deals.
Long Vowel BINGO
Common Single Syllable Vowel Patterns Printable Page
Long a, Long i, and Long o Printable Packs {for CVCe words}
Follow This Reading Mama’s board Hands-On Spelling Ideas on Pinterest.
Download this FREE Long Vowels Roll-a-Word Activity Pack HERE.
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~Becky
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