A long vowel is a vowel that says its name. Some words or syllables that end in a vowels, such as hi, knee, no and she, sound like their name.
Mar 30, 2018 The first step to mastering the vowel sounds is to understand the difference between both short and long vowels. Long vowels are the easiest of the two for students to learn because they have the same sound as their name. For example, the long o sounds like the o in the word ocean, and the long a sounds like the a in the word acorn.
There are exceptions to every rule, and 'do' and 'to' are two exceptions to this rule. When followed by at least two constants, the vowels 'i' and 'o' have the long vowel sound. Example words are child, hold, post and kind.Two vowels side by side in the same word says the name of the first vowel. The second vowel is silent.
Some example words are gate, made, seal, teen, mile, rise, spoke, flow, use and mule. Certain vowels do not follow the rule for long and short vowels. For example, when the vowel 'o' is followed by 'i,' the two-vowel rule is not followed, as in 'boil.' Ending the 'io' combination with an 'n,' and beginning the combination with an 's', 't' or 'c' changes the pronunciation to 'shun.'
An 'e' that is followed by a 'd' makes one of three sounds. Example words are: lifted, played and walked.
The rules of long and short vowels does not apply to words ending in 'igh,' such as thigh, light, high, and sigh. Because the combination 'ough' makes at least seven different sounds, it falls under irregular verbs. The different sounds are heard in the following words: bough, cough, hough, tough, through, thought and through.