Short Vowel Words

Short vowel words are words where the vowel makes its short sound: the a in cat, the e in bed, the i in pig, the o in hot and the u in sun. They are the first words a child can read by sounding out, because every letter makes one sound and no letter is silent.

This page mixes all five vowels on purpose, and that is the whole reason it exists. A child reading a page of short a words never has to decide which vowel they are looking at. Mixing them is what turns reading into choosing, and choosing is the skill.

Which short vowels do children mix up?

Short e and short i, and the reason is physical rather than careless. The two sounds are made with the tongue in almost the same place and the mouth open almost the same amount. Say pen and then pin in a mirror: there is very little to hear and nothing at all to see.

Short o and short u are the second pair, more quietly: hot and hut, cop and cup, not and nut.

Both respond to the same thing, which is putting the two side by side rather than practising each alone. Short i words carries a sorting sheet built for the e and i pair specifically.

All five short sounds are a kindergarten expectation: Common Core (RF.K.3b) asks children to “associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels”, which is the whole set this page mixes.

How to use these worksheets

They are in teaching order, and each one adds back something the sheet before it took away. Teaching in a set order rather than as words turn up is what the National Reading Panel calls systematic phonics, and the panel found it “significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics”.

1. Picture Match asks for nothing but listening. Your child cuts out a picture, names it, and glues it under the vowel they hear. No reading, no writing, and no word printed anywhere except the answer key in your hand.
2. Missing Letter gives the picture and every letter except the vowel. Your child names the picture and writes the one letter that is missing, which is the smallest step there is between hearing a sound and spelling a word.
3. Word Sort takes the pictures away. Now the words are printed and your child reads each one and writes it under its vowel, which is the same choice made by eye instead of by ear.
4. Handwriting Practice takes the choice away and leaves the word. Four words for each vowel, printed once and copied on a ruled line, so the only thing left to do is write them.

Start at whichever one your child can already nearly do. A child who cannot read cat can still finish the picture sort, and it is teaching them the thing that matters.

What comes after short vowel words

Each vowel has its own list if one of the five needs more work on its own: short a, short e, short i, short o, short u.

Short vowel sounds is the explainer, with all five sounds, how each one is made and a printable chart for the fridge.

If you want the words grouped by their ending instead, that is a word family, and CVC words has a section for almost every one: 25 families in 24 sections, since the two smallest, -up and -um, share one.

After short vowels come two letters making one sound, such as th and sh, and then silent e, where cap becomes cape (silent-e words).

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Free printables for this list

Every sheet below is built from the Short Vowel Words above. No account, no email, no watermark. Start at the top and print one at a time. The sheets are in teaching order, and ten minutes on a single sheet is more valuable than working through a stack on autopilot.

1. 1Short Vowel Words: Picture Match (PDF)30 pictures · answer key included · 4 pagesDownload
2. 2Short Vowel Words: Odd One Out (PDF)6 rows · answer key included · 2 pagesDownload
3. 3Short Vowel Words: Missing Letter (PDF)30 pictures · answer key included · 3 pagesDownload
4. 4Short Vowel Word Sort (PDF)15 words · answer key included · 2 pagesDownload
5. 5Short Vowel Words: Handwriting Practice (PDF)20 words · 3 pagesDownload
6. 6Short Vowel Word Ladder (PDF)8 rungs · answer key included · 2 pagesDownload

Frequently asked questions

What are short vowel words?

Short vowel words are words whose vowel makes its short sound: cat, bed, pig, hot and sun. They are the first words most children can read by sounding out, because every letter makes one sound and none of them are silent.

What are the five short vowel sounds?

a as in apple, e as in egg, i as in igloo, o as in octopus, and u as in umbrella. Each one is a single quick sound rather than the letter's name.

Which short vowels do children mix up?

Short e and short i, because the mouth barely moves between them. Pin and pen, bit and bet, tin and ten all sound nearly alike to a child still learning to listen. Short o and short u are the next pair, more quietly.

Are short vowel words the same as CVC words?

They overlap and are not the same. Every CVC word has a short vowel, but flag, hand and stop have short vowels too and are not CVC. CVC describes the shape of the word; short vowel describes the sound in the middle.

How do you practise telling the five vowels apart?

Mix them on one page rather than working through one vowel at a time. A child who reads a page of short a words is not choosing between vowels, so the choice has to be built into the task, which is what a sort or a fill-in-the-vowel sheet does.