step#14: short and long sounds

Children often get confused with the length of the mid vowel sound. sometimes with different lengths, different words are formed. to make it more complicated, in many such cases, they both are written in similar way in Hindi. for example, pen and pain. pen has a short ए sound while pain has the long ए sound (the way you say the alphabet A), and both pen and pain are written as पेन in Hindi. with such confusions in mind, children end up writing (if not saying), "i need my pain to write", or "i have pen in my leg"

to avoid such confusions, it is very important to teach short and long sounds of the middle vowels. you may use column method to teach this concept. (write the short sound word in first column, invite the child to think of the corresponding long sound word and then you write it the second column)

some of the short/long sound words at this level are:

1. bit-beat
2. chit-cheat
3. sit-seat
4. fit-feet
5. wit-wheat
6. hit-heat
7. it-eat
8. bin-been
9. sin-seen
10. kin-keen
11. grin-green
12. win-wean
13. bid-bead
14. did-deed
15. lid-lead
16. pill-peel
17. hill-heal
18. fill-feel
19. mill-meal
20. still-steal
21. pen-pain
22. men-main
23. pent-paint
24. sent-saint
25. live-leave
26. sick-seek
27. pick- peek
28. bet-bait
29. met-mate
30. let-late
31. get-gate
32. wet-wait
33. hell-hail
34. well-wail
35. gel-jail
36. tell-tail
37. bell- bail
38. sell- said
39. red-raid
40. wed-wade