The Practice Library · Phonics
Long Vowel Worksheets: Magic E and Vowel Teams
A long vowel says its name: the a in cake, the e in feet, the o in boat. These pages cover the spellings that make it happen, for Grades 1, 2 and 3: magic e, the vowel teams, igh, and y at the end of a short word.
Each set works on one spelling or one vowel. The first three pages of every set are free PDFs, open to everyone. The rest of each set, and an answer key for every page, are included with All Access.
1st Grade long vowel worksheets
- Long E Teams Free PDF Long e is spelled with the teams ee (feet), ea (seat), and sometimes ey (key), ie (field), or a single e (me).
- Magic E Free PDF Magic e (also called silent e or the VCe pattern) is the silent e at the end of a word that makes the vowel before it say its name: cap becomes cape, kit becomes kite, hop becomes hope.
- Magic E: e-e Free PDF The e_e pattern is magic e with the vowel e in the middle: Pete, these, theme, complete.
- Magic E: u-e Free PDF The u_e pattern is magic e with u in the middle: cube, mule, flute, rule.
- Vowel Teams Free PDF A vowel team is two or three letters that spell one vowel sound, most often a long one: ai and ay for long a (train, play), ee and ea for long e (green, steam), oa and ow for long o (boat, snow), ie and igh for long i (tie, light), ue and ew for long u (blue, grew).
- Y as a Vowel Free PDF At the end of a short word y works as a vowel and says long i: by, cry, fly, sky, try, dry.
2nd Grade long vowel worksheets
- Long a Family Free PDF Long a can be spelled several ways: a_e (cake), ai (rain), ay (play), and less often eigh (eight) or ei (vein).
- Long I: igh Free PDF igh is a three-letter team that spells long i: light, night, high, right.
- Long O Family Free PDF Long o is spelled o_e (bone), oa (boat), ow (snow), and oe (toe), plus a single o at the end of short words (go, no).
- Long U: ue and ew Free PDF ue and ew are vowel teams for long u and the /oo/ sound: blue, glue, rescue, new, grew, chew.
- Long Vowel Teams Review Free PDF Vowel teams are two vowels that work together for one sound, most often the long sound: ai in rain, ee in feet, oa in boat, ea in seat.
- Sliding Vowels Free PDF Sliding vowels are the gliding sounds spelled oi, oy, ou, and ow: soil, joy, cloud, town.
- Vowel Teams & Diphthongs Free PDF Vowel teams spell one vowel sound with two letters (ai, ee, oa); diphthongs are gliding sounds where the mouth moves during the vowel (oi in coin, ou in cloud, ow in cow).
3rd Grade long vowel worksheets
- Long A: eigh and ei Free PDF eigh and ei are the rare spellings of long a: eight, weigh, neighbor, vein, reindeer.
How to use these pages
- Teach magic e before the vowel teams. A child who can turn cap into cape has seen that a second vowel changes the first.
- Take one long vowel at a time. Long a alone can be spelled a_e, ai, ay, eigh or ei, and the family sets sort those spellings.
- The gliding sounds oi, oy, ou and ow are here as well. They are vowel teams, though the sound they spell is not a long one.
- Keep the review set for last: it mixes the teams that the other sets teach one by one.
Practice pages support a program; they are not the lesson. These sheets reinforce Phonics, Decoding, and Early Fluency, the complete K–5 reading curriculum from Faith Readers. See every program →