Variant Vowels Worksheets

Related ELA Standard: RF.1.2.a

Core Standard
Answer Keys Here

When we are learning basic language skills it is critical to understand how paired letter, particularly vowels, produce new sounds when paired together. Variant vowels are groups of letters that produce the same vowel sound. Students don’t need to know the exact label of these letter pairs, but just understand that the end result of the sound is the same. There are tremendous series of letter pairs that produce a long "a" sound, that is an example of a variant vowel. These worksheets will help students understand how to recognize and use variant vowels.

Variant Vowels Worksheets:

oo | ou - Match the words in the box with their spelling pattern. Write the words on the correct line.

Errors - Correct the spelling errors in each sentence. Cross out the incorrectly spelled word. Write the correctly spelled word above it.

oo | ue | ui - Match the words in the box with their spelling pattern. Write the words on the correct line and then choose from the available words to complete the rhymes.

Sounds the Same - Circle the word in each row that has a different vowel sound. There are thirteen here for you to practice with.

ew | oe | ue - Write the words with the same spelling pattern as blue. We work with these commonly found pairs.

au | aw - Each word below is missing a letter. Write the missing letter in the box. Then spell the word correctly on the line.

ai | ay | a_e - Choose the correct spelling for the word in parentheses to complete each of the sentences.

Circle the Word - Circle the word in each row that has a different vowel sound. Lots of Ws and Ys are in here.

Short | Long - Add a E to change each short vowel sound into a long vowel sound. Write the new word on the line.

Which One Gets It? - Circle the letters that form a word with the vowel sound ea.

Complete Me - Fill in the vowels to complete each word. Sort the words into the correct columns. One word doesn't belong.

The Clue at the Zoo - Lue and Sue were going to the zoo. It was a cool day in June. They saw the pandas, who were eating bamboo. They saw the penguins, who were staying cool in their pool.

Picture Clues - Write the word that is described here for you. Use the pictures for clues.

Sort the Sounds - Sort the words below into the correct layers of sound buckets.

Vacant Vowels - Each missing word contains a variant vowel sound. Write the missing word. Underline the variant vowels.

What Are Variant Vowels?


The concept of variant vowels is very essential for understanding the use of phonics, and other basics of language. Variant vowels are the groups of letters that produce the sound of vowels. One example of the variant vowel is the way that "ai", "ay", and "ae" produces the sound of long a. The concept of variant vowels teaches us that sometimes combination of letters can make the sounds similar to other letters. It is necessary to understand this to develop good reading and writing skills. This concept explains why sometimes the spellings are different but they rhyme anyway.

The lesson of variant vowels might seem very difficult for the young students or non-native speakers. Not many languages have variants in their spellings that make the same vowel sounds. This can make pronunciations difficult to learn.

The concept of variant vowels is closely related to diphthongs. The word diphthongs is a greek word which means "having two sounds". They deal with vowels. All five vowels have two sounds. One is the long sound and the other is short sound. A diphthong is when the vowel makes a new sound in conjunction with another vowel. The best example to understand diphthongs is the word "oil". In this word, there are two vowels side by side. The sound that they create is different from both "O" and "I". It is a completely new sound.

A single vowel is known as monophthong. An example of it is of "O" in the word "hop". It requires no effort to join two vowels together to form a new sound. However, in diphthongs and variant vowels, you have to glide to from one vowel sound to another. It is known as gliding. This is why sometimes variant vowels and diphthongs are called "gliding vowels".