Vowels

At the beginning of the year, I started talking with my first graders as we worked on an interactive writing activity. I said something like, "Which vowel should we use to show that sound?" ... and whoa! That question got my class all crazy!

I think one student had heard the term "vowel," but the rest of the class had no idea what I was talking about! I was surprised, because students usually hear that term in kindergarten. They may not remember exactly what "vowel" means, but usually first graders pretend they remember. This class seriously had never heard the word! Of course, that changed the course of the next few lessons a bit, and I created these posters to help them learn which letters are vowels. These vowel posters hang above our traditional alphabet and word wall for easy reference. And they are LARGE so they can be seen clearly from across the classroom.



I made each vowel a different color, and in my early lessons on vowels, I wrote the words with black consonants and the corresponding color for each vowel. A little extra reinforcement can't hurt, right?

I'm happy to say that 100% of my class now knows which letters are vowels, and their short and long sounds. Smarties! (Actually, they know lots more than that, thank goodness! Second grade is just around the corner for them!)

What are you waiting for? Go get these posters! Free! Free! Free!