Fun Activities to Teach Short Vowels

1. Fun Activities to Teach Short Vowels

2. INTRODUCTION All pediatric speech therapy sessions begin with teaching language sounds. In English, we have consonants and vowels. Here in this article, we are going to discuss some interesting fun games and activities to adopt while teaching short vowels, which are A-E-I-O-U. We all remember saying these 5 short vowels in a row with a singing rhythm. How did our teachers implant the rhythm and sounds into our minds? They had their ways and games, and here we are revealing some of the activities the best speech therapists use with children who need extra care in understanding these sounds.

3. Short Vowel Stick Puppets Students are always excited to make crafts with the materials they have. Assign them to make five puppets each for a short vowel and let them hold it in their hand. The therapist can say a vowel out loud, let students listen, repeat, identify and hold the stick puppet of that particular vowel high in the air. If students find it hard to make puppets on their own, let the therapist bring one set of stick puppets to the class and give chance to students individually.

4. Sand Writing Let students be provided with sand spread on some tray or a paper plate. When the therapist says a vowel sound, for example, /o/, ley students trace the vowel sound in the sand along with repeating the vowel out loud. In this activity, students not only learn the vowel sounds clearly, but they also get a sensory experience of tracing the sand with their respective finger.

5. Fluency Strips Even if students know the vowels by heart, they might find it difficult to distinguish one after the other while reading. Fluency strips are best to make them practice in differentiating one vowel from the other. Fluency strips are more beneficial, if they are made with one- syllable words, not complex ones such as a bat, dog, bed, sit, put etc. with one vowel in between consonants. Here students can underline the vowels and say them in front of others.

6. CONCLUSION These are some of the best activities effectively utilized by the speech therapist in Sharjah to teach short vowel sounds. All students learn lessons taught through games and activities much easier than teaching in words and lectures. Learning through games are more memorable, imprinting the concepts to the younger minds for a lifetime.

7. THANK YOU... Presented by, speech therapist in Sharjah