Long A Worksheets: 4 Free Printables
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We’re giving you 4 free worksheets to use with your students as you teach them the common ways to spell the long a sound: a, a-e, ai, and ay.
Long A Sound & Spelling
Long A Sound: The sound that long ā makes is the same as its letter name: A. You can clearly hear this sound in words like able, cake, rain, and play.
Long A Spellings: There are four common ways to spell the long a sound. The most common graphemes are:
- a like baby (open syllable).
- a-e like plane (silent e syllable).
- ai and ay (vowel teams).
➡ There are a few less common ways to spell the long a sound, too. These include ei (veil), ea (steak), eigh (eight) and ey (they).
Because there are so many ways to spell the same sound, kids need explicit teaching following a SOR-aligned scope and sequence, along with lots of opportunities to practice.
Long A Worksheets
To help kids master both the sound and spellings of Long a, we’re giving away 4 FREE Long a worksheets! Each worksheet targets a specific skill to help students read and spell words with the Long a sound.
Long A Picture Sort
In this speech-to-print activity, kids will look at pictures and listen for the speech sound. Some pictures include the long a sound, while others do not. Kids will sort them into the Long A or Not Long A columns.
After completing the activity, be sure to discuss the vowel sounds heard in each word, and compare them to the sounds in the other words.
The rest of the worksheets are designed for use after kids have been taught a, a-e, ai, and ay.
Long A Listen & Spell Worksheet
This worksheet is focused on both listening and spelling.
First, kids will listen to words and identify a specific speech sound: long ā. They’ll look at the pictures and only color in or circle the ones that contain the long a speech sound. This works best if teachers say the words aloud, moving from left to right, to avoid any confusion about the vocabulary.
Next, they’ll use pictures to fill in the missing words, using the pictures as clues, in the decodable sentences.
Long A Word Sort
Kids will read words with the Long a sound and then cut and sort them based on their spelling patterns.
For example, cake would be placed under the A-E heading because it follows the a-consonant-e pattern. April would be placed under the A heading because the Long a occurs in an open syllable.
For an extra challenge, encourage kids to identify the syllable type for each spelling.
Long A Word Mapping
Kids will see words written out in sound boxes. They’ll color in the grapheme representing the long a sound, paying attention to the spelling. Then they’ll rewrite the word in the box below and color in the picture.
We love this resource because using sound boxes helps promote orthographic mapping, which is the process by which words become stored in long-term memory. It helps kids learn to spell these common words correctly.
*Some worksheets with pictures include an answer key (you’ll see the words flipped upside-down). This is provided so there’s no confusion about what each picture represents. If you’re worried students might peek at the answers, simply use a Sharpie to black them out before making copies. That way, students won’t have access to the answers, but you’ll still have them available for reference!
More Long Vowel Worksheets
Visit these posts for more long vowel resources:
You can also get this Vowel Team Bundle to get Games, Posters, Worksheets, Google Slides, and more!
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MORE Freebies: OI/OY, AU/AW, OW (2 Sounds)
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