A great way to help your students master words with long vowels is to play “Long Vowel Uno.” Write long vowel words (i.e. make, kite, these, those, dune) on index cards that have been cut in half. You will need at least ten word cards and one “wild” card per student. The “wild” card allows the student to change the vowel sound of the pile. Give each student five cards and put the rest in a “draw” pile. Flip over one card from the “draw” pile to start the game. The first player can play one of his/her cards if it has the same long vowel as the card on the draw pile (i.e. make and cane) or if it is a “wild” card. If the student can not play, he/she may draw a card from the pile. Play continues with the next player. The first player to get rid of all of his/her cards wins. The key to this game is making sure that the students say the words on the cards that they are playing. This game allows the students to practice blending, silent final e, and long vowels.

P.S. This game can easily be adapted to practice digraphs, blends, cvc words, word families, vowel digraphs, etc.