Short I Words

Short i at the start of a word is where the sound is cleanest, because nothing comes before it. Say igloo slowly and the first thing you hear is the sound.

Four of these six are words your child will recognize on sight before they can sound them out. In, it, is and if turn up on every page of every early reader. That is fine, and it is worth knowing: reading them fast is not the same as hearing the i in them, and this section is about the second one.

Point at the i and ask what sound it makes, then read the word. If the answer is “eye”, that is the letter’s name rather than its sound, and the short vowel sounds chart is the place to start.

Six words and one sound in the middle. Win, sit, lid, zip, pig, bin: the only thing they share is the i.

They are in this order for a reason. Win, sit, lid and zip all start with a sound you can hold on for as long as you like, which gives your child time to get to the vowel. Pig and bin start with a sound that stops dead. That is a real difference in how hard a word is to blend, and it is why the first four come first.

Six and fix are on this page but not on these sheets, and the reason is worth knowing: the x spells two sounds, /k/ and /s/, so six is three letters and four sounds. The sound boxes would have to lie about one or the other. Both words are in the mixed review at the bottom of the page instead, and on its word scramble, where the number of sounds never comes up.

Same job, harder words. Dig and kid start with a sound that stops the moment you make it, so there is nothing to hold while your child works out the vowel. Hit and rip start on sounds you can stretch, and they are here because the six easiest short i words are in the section above.

Lip and rip differ by one letter at the front, and tin is the one to read last. Tin is the short i half of the tin-and-ten pair, which is the confusion the next section is about.

If this section is where it falls apart, that is information rather than a setback. It almost always means the blending is not automatic yet rather than that the vowel is wrong. Go back to the six words above, and read my child knows letter sounds but cannot sound out words, which is about exactly this.

Short e and short i are the two sounds children swap, and the reason is physical. Your mouth barely moves between them: same tongue position, almost the same opening. Say pen and then pin and watch in a mirror. If you cannot see much difference, neither can your child hear much.

Practicing them apart is what lets the confusion survive. A week of short i, then a week of short e, and your child has never once had to choose. Put the two side by side and the choice is the whole task, which is what the word sort on this section is.

Read each pair across, not down. Pen, pin. Ten, tin. Bet, bit. Then say one of the two and ask your child to point at the one you said. That is the same skill the sort asks for on paper, and it takes ten seconds.

If your child reads pen for pin, the problem is hearing, not reading. Go to the middle-sound work first: short vowel sounds has the five sounds and how each one is made, and its chart has a page for exactly this pair. Then come back here.

The full short e list, with its own words and worksheets, is on short e words.

Where to go next depends on whether the vowel or the blending was the problem.

• If short i and short e are still swapping, that is the work, and it is worth doing before anything new. Short e words has the other half of every pair.
• If short i is solid, short o and short u are the two left that sound least alike: short o words and short u words.
• For more words with the same ending, the families are on CVC words, a section each for -it, -ig, -in, -ip and -id.
• Once all five are going, short vowel words mixes them on one page, which is the real test of whether a child is reading the middle letter.

When short vowels are easy, the next step is two letters making one sound. Words with th and sh words are where most children go.