Building Long Vowel Words Small Group Game

My last blog post was all about building words with blends and digraphs. Now, I'm here to show you a small group game called Building Long Vowel Words. Learning to blend and decode individual sounds in words helps children build strong word attack skills and is crucial to reading success.

Along with all of my word building activity sheets, I also like to have plenty of hands-on games available, to keep my students learning and engaged. Playing games helps build social skills and, as long as you model proper game etiquette, students can play them at stations, while you are meeting with your reading groups. Through the years, my students have chosen to play academic games during free time. Even though I tell them they don't have to! This makes my teacher heart happy!

I start teaching long vowels in kindergarten. I teach all about the magical powers of the silent e at the end of the word (Super e) and then the children continue to learn more and more long vowel word families in first grade. I like using word families to teach long vowels because learning and practicing the rime patterns helps children familiarize themselves with many more words that contain the same rime.

In the game, Building Words With Long Vowels, students combine onsets and rimes, focusing on long vowel word families. The more they play and build words, the more they understand that there are systematic and predictable relationships between letters, their sounds, and the words they make.

Here is the game board. It's cute and colorful, and the children enjoy moving their tokens from start to finish. The game is perfect for 2-6 players.

To play, students take turns choosing an initial consonant card and a word family card. I copy them on two different colors to keep them organized. I made basket labels to hold the cards. (The labels are included with the game.)

They place the cards on their mat. Each player has their own mat. They read the word out loud. If the word is a real word, they write it on the recording sheet (this step is optional) and roll the dice. If the word is a nonsense word, they write it on their recording sheet and then stay on the same space. They only move ahead if they make a real word. Student directions, with and without a recording sheet, are included.

This is the recording sheet. I like to use it for extra practice, but I know that not all teachers like recording sheets. 


Students can check their answers on the answer key, if necessary. Some of the words may be new to them, so I make sure the children know how to look up a word in the dictionary, to find its meaning. They've learned lots of new words playing this game!

And there you have it! Students move around the board, reading and writing and learning long vowel words. There is a separate game for all five vowels, plus, three extra games that contain a mix of all long vowel word families, for a total of eight games. Here are all the word families included. Once students understand that the vowel says its name, they are able to read all the words, even those with vowel teams.

This game can be played all year long because there are so many different words that can be made. Each game played is always different from the last.

It's perfect for stations/centers, small groups, RTI, and FREE TIME!

If you are interested in adding this long vowel game to your classroom, just click here or on the image below.

Grab it while it's on sale for a few days!