Grab these free games to help kids spell long vowel words!

Looking for a simple spelling activity? Kids love these roll & write games – and this one is just right for practice with long vowel words!

A few years ago I published my set of roll & write pages for short vowel words. Since that time, readers have asked that I share a page for long vowel words as well.

Here you are!

Roll & Write for long vowel words

This is a simple single-player activity that will give students practice spelling long vowel words.

How to play

• Grab a pencil and a die.
• Roll the die. Find its match on one of the columns of the worksheet, and identify the word family.
• Find a letter, blend, or digraph that you can use to create a new word with that word family. Use the box at the top of the worksheet for help.
• Write the word in the appropriate column.
• If necessary, check your spelling in a dictionary.

For example, my son rolled a “1.” In the long a game that he was playing, he saw that he needed to make a word that ended with ane. Right away he came up with the word stane.

I told him we’d need to check the dictionary to make sure that it was correct.

It wasn’t.

I encouraged him to find another word, and he came up with mane.

I don’t actually recommend that you have your child look up every word in the dictionary. For one thing, it’s tedious. For another, your child may not have the dictionary skills to do this efficiently. My little guy is a first grader, and I knew that looking up each word would be waaaay too hard and frustrating for him.

Since we did this together, I looked up the words for him.

Unlike my short vowel roll & write games, these present a special challenge: it’s very possible that your child will choose the wrong spelling of a word. She might write snale for snail, or trane for train.

What should you do?

First, if your child is doing a lot of that, these games may be too hard for him or her. Back up and do word sorts with these common phonics patterns. You’ll learn all about word sorts in this post about my favorite approach to teaching spelling.

If your child is making only an occasional mistake, let him finish the game all on his own. Then put a star next to the words that are incorrect. Ask him to try another spelling.

Rather than ask your child to fill in every line, have him play for a certain period of time. 10-15 minutes should do it.

These games would work really well as a review after studying long vowels in spelling lessons. After you finish learning long a patterns, play one or both of the long a games. After you finish learning long i patterns, play the long i game.

Introducing this activity too early will likely bring frustration.

On the other hand, if your child enjoys words and writing (as mine does), this can be a fun way to learn about long vowel spellings even before you do heavy-duty instruction.

Whatever you decide, I hope your children enjoy these!

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