Vowel Worksheets
Every vowel sound in one place: the five short vowels, the long vowels, the silent e, the vowel teams and the r-controlled vowels, each with tracing, sorting and find-the-vowel pages. Free PDFs, no signup.
Ages 3-7
Updated September 2026
Curated by 
Poppy Fox
Trace the five vowels
The five vowels one per line, a solid model then dashed copies to trace.
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Find the vowels (mixed)
The review page: all five vowels shuffled, so the child cannot guess from the pattern.
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Short a words to trace
Five short a words traced on guide lines: hat, jam, pan, wax and lap, one sound repeated five times.
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Short e words to trace
The short e trace page: peg, vet, den, web and hem, the vowel that hides in the middle of the mouth.
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Short i words to trace
Short i on the line: fig, bib, rim, zip and kit traced until the middle sound stops wobbling.
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Short o words to trace
Five short o words to trace: cob, fox, jog, sock and hop, all with the same round middle.
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Short u words to trace
The short u trace: hug, tub, mud, gum and bun, five words that end the short vowel run.
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The missing a
Every answer on this page is the same letter: ten words waiting for their short a and nothing else.
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The missing e
Ten words missing an e and only an e, so the ear can stop choosing and start confirming.
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The missing i
The i page: ten gaps and one answer, which is what makes it the easiest of the five to start with.
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The missing o
Ten short o words with the vowel lifted out: dog, box, mop and pot all need the same round sound.
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The missing u
The last single-vowel page: ten words that all want a u, from sun and bug to hug and bun.
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Long a words to trace
The long a says its own name: cake, rain, name, tail and gate traced with the sound said out loud.
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Long e words to trace
Long e words to trace: feet, tree, seat, leaf and bee, the sound that usually needs two letters.
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Long i words to trace
Long i on the line: bike, kite, pie, time and five, five words that all say the letter i by name.
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Long o words to trace
Long o traced five times over: rope, boat, coat, nose and road, the same sound spelt three ways.
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Long u words to trace
The long u set: cube, mule, tube, cute and huge, the vowel that turns into a small word of its own.
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Read and write long a words
Eight long a words read then copied: cake and rain look nothing alike but carry the same sound.
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Read and write long e words
Long e read and write: eight words where ee and ea take turns making the identical sound.
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Read and write long i words
Eight long i words, including the igh spelling that trips up every beginner reader.
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Read and write long o words
Long o read and write: oa, ow and the silent e all doing the same job across eight words.
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Read and write long u words
The long u page: eight words to read then write, from cube and mule to music and use.
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Magic e with the letter a
Eight a words that change completely when a silent e joins them: cap turns into cape, man into mane.
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Magic e with the letter i
The silent e turns pin into pine and kit into kite: eight short i words promoted to long i.
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Magic e with the letter o
Eight o words rebuilt by the magic e: hop becomes hope, not becomes note, rob becomes robe.
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Magic e with the letter u
The u pairs: cub to cube, tub to tube, cut to cute, eight words changed by one silent letter.
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Magic e review, all four vowels
Two words from each vowel shuffled together, so the silent e has to be worked out rather than expected.
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Short a or long a?
Twelve a words to split: the short ones snap shut, the long ones say the letter out loud.
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Short e or long e?
Short e against long e across twelve words, with ee and ea carrying most of the long column.
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Short i or long i?
Twelve i words sorted by sound: pig stays short, bike stretches, and the spelling gives no clue.
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Short o or long o?
The o sort: twelve words where short and long look almost identical on the page.
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Short u or long u?
Twelve u words split by sound, closing the short and long sorting series.
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Words that start with a
Ten words that open with a: apple, ant and arm need their first letter written back in.
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Words that start with e
The e page: egg, elephant and elbow all start with the vowel, and the box is at the front.
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Words that start with i
Ten short words that begin with i, including the ones so small they are easy to skip: in, if, is, it.
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Words that start with o
Words that start with o: octopus, ox and ostrich among ten first letters to restore.
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Words that start with u
The u openers: umbrella, up, under and uncle, ten words missing the vowel they start on.
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The ai vowel team
The ai team: two letters, one sound, five words. It almost always sits in the middle of the word.
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The ay vowel team
ay does the same job as ai but lives at the end of the word: day, play, say, tray and stay.
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The ee vowel team
Double e, the most reliable team in English: feet, tree, bee, green and sheep never surprise anyone.
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The ea vowel team
The ea team usually sounds like ee, as in leaf, seat, beach, team and eat, which is why it confuses.
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The oa vowel team
oa in the middle of a word says a long o: boat, coat, road, goat and soap.
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The ow vowel team
ow is the long o at the end of a word: snow, slow, grow, yellow and window.
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The ie vowel team
ie changes its mind: pie, tie and lie say long i while field and chief say long e.
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The igh vowel team
Three letters for one sound: igh always says long i, as in light, night, high, right and bright.
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The oo vowel team
The oo team has two sounds: long in moon, food and spoon, short in book and look.
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The ui vowel team
ui is rare and irregular: fruit, juice and suit say oo, and build says short i.
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The au vowel team
au gives the open aw sound in the middle of a word: sauce, autumn, launch, author and August.
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The aw vowel team
The same sound as au but at the end of the word or before an n: saw, paw, draw, straw and yawn.
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The oi vowel team
oi in the middle of a word: coin, oil, soil, point and join, the sound that makes children smile.
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The oy vowel team
oy is the same sound as oi but at the end: boy, toy, joy, enjoy and royal.
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The ar sound
When r follows a, the vowel stops saying either of its usual sounds: car, star, farm, park and shark.
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The er sound
er is the quiet vowel at the end of countless words: her, fern, herd, teacher and under.
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The ir sound
ir sounds exactly like er and ur, which is why bird, girl, shirt, third and dirt need practice.
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The or sound
or keeps a rounder sound than the other three: corn, fork, storm, horse and north.
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The ur sound
The third of the identical trio: turn, burn, curl, nurse and purple all share the er sound.
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Sort ai and ay words
Same sound, two spellings: ai hides in the middle and ay sits at the end. Twelve words to prove it.
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Sort ee and ea words
ee and ea sound identical and there is no rule: twelve words sorted purely by how they are written.
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Sort oa and ow words
oa in the middle, ow at the end: twelve long o words that follow the rule almost every time.
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Sort oi and oy words
The oi and oy sort, twelve words deep, with the position in the word deciding the spelling.
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Sort au and aw words
au and aw share one sound and split by position: twelve words to file into the right column.
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Is y a vowel or a consonant?
The sixth vowel, sometimes: twelve words sorted by whether the y is doing a vowel job or a consonant one.
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Words that end in y
Ten words that finish on a y doing the work of a vowel, from happy and baby to windy and story.
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Vowel or consonant, the letters
Twenty loose letters to file: five belong in the vowel column and the other fifteen do not.
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Does the word start with a vowel?
The same question moved from single letters to whole words: apple, egg and ink against dog, cat and sun.
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Find every vowel in the word
Eighteen longer words with two or three vowels apiece, so circling one and stopping is no longer enough.
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How many vowels? · #1
Ten short words with one, two or three vowels each, counted and then circled from the row of numbers.
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How many vowels? · #2
Six-letter words with the vowels spread out: garden, yellow and basket all count differently.
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How many vowels? · #3
The long words: elephant, umbrella and helicopter can hold four vowels, and every one has to be found.
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Short vowel review, all five
The five-way sort: fifteen words and one column per vowel, with nothing narrowed down in advance.
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Long vowel review, all five
Fifteen long vowel words and five columns, mixing the silent e spellings with the vowel teams.
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Match the vowel team to a word
Eight vowel teams on one side and eight words on the other, matched by sound rather than by position.
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R-controlled vowel review
Fifteen words filed under ar, er, ir, or and ur, where three of the five sound alike and only spelling separates them.
Download PDFWhat is a short vowel sound?
A short vowel is the quick, clipped sound each vowel makes in cat, bed, pig, dog and cup. It is the first sound children learn for each letter because it is the one that behaves: it appears in the largest number of simple words and it almost never changes when the word is only three letters long.
Long vowels are the ones that say the letter's own name, as in cake, feet, bike, rope and cube. Children meet these second, usually alongside the silent e that causes them. Keeping the two apart at the start avoids the most common early reading muddle, which is a child trying both sounds at once and guessing.
Why practise vowels on their own?
Because the vowel is where reading breaks down. A child who stalls halfway through a word is nearly always stuck on the middle sound, not the consonants around it. Five minutes hunting vowels inside words does more for blending than another page of letter tracing.
Print at 100% on US Letter or A4. Pair these with the CVC words worksheets once each vowel is secure on its own.
