Grade 2 Phonics, Decoding & Spelling Patterns: Sliding Vowels
216 printable 2nd Grade phonics worksheets on Sliding Vowels. 6 activity types: Crack the Code, Lesson, Read and Draw, Roll and Read. The first three are free to download; All Access opens all 216.
Practice pages support a program; they are not the lesson. These sheets reinforce Phonics, Decoding, and Early Fluency — Grade 2, the complete K–5 reading curriculum from Faith Readers. See every program →
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Includes 6 activity types: Crack the Code, Lesson, Read and Draw, Roll and Read, Word Ladder, Word Search.
Teaching Sliding Vowels
What it is
Sliding vowels are the gliding sounds spelled oi, oy, ou, and ow: soil, joy, cloud, town. The mouth keeps moving while the vowel is said, which is why they sound like neither a short nor a long vowel.
When a child is ready
Teach them after short vowels, magic e, and the long vowel teams are read without stopping to sound them out.
If they struggle
Sort the words into an oi/oy pile and an ou/ow pile before reading any of them, and point out that oi and ou sit inside a word while oy and ow usually end it (coin and boy, cloud and town). When an ow word makes no sense, have the child try the other ow: cow first, then snow.
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