Short Vowels Intervention

Let’s talk about short vowels. Distinguishing short vowels can be tricky! Especially short i and short e (but I’ll get to that later in this post). Here’s one of my favorite quick activities for short vowel intervention or just practice for that matter.

Vowel Tents

Basically, your students have “tents” or cards in front of them with each short vowel sound. They listen for the vowel sound you say and pull the card.

You can easily differentiate this to your students needs:
-just focus on vowel sounds alone (/a/ /e/…)
-focus on endings/word parts (am, et, un…)
-use CVC words and listen for the vowel or medial sound (cat, sam, run, tup-yes use non-sense words)

This can also be used to for long vowels or even to distinguish between long and short vowels. You don’t have to use all the vowels either, if your students are struggling with particular vowel sounds, just use those tents for one activity. The possibilities and fun are endless with this activity.

Click the picture below (or here) to download the printable vowel tents. Add line above the vowel to distinguish it as a long vowel. Print them on different colors for distinguishability.

The most commonly confused vowel sounds I have come across are short i and short e. They are very hard to distinguish, especially for our multi-lingual learners. Noticing many of my reading intervention students struggle with this (and my first graders, when I taught first), I created a pack that will help students distinguish the different. Most students need more time and more practice to hear the difference.

This resource has many opportunities to practice distinguishing these two vowel sounds, from coloring to cut/paste, to center activities.