Long U and Short U

So, what about you? I mean U.

Phonics Cheat Sheet words -

• Long U (OO) - tune - moon - blue - blew
• Long U (YOO) - cube - you - popular - universal - fuel

As you can see, Long U can be said in two different ways - OO (like "too") or YOU (like "you" :)

Can you think of some different spellings for these sounds?

with the "oo" sound -

• OO - Moon - Soon - Room
• OU - Soup Troupe
• U_E - Blue - glue - true
• EW - Blew - New - Flew

and with the "U" /yoo/ sound -

• U_E - /kyu/ Cute - Cube - Cure - perfume
  
• EW - /fyu/ Few - fewer - nephew
• U - /yoo/ Universal - University - Fuel - Cucumber - popular /pop - yoo - lar)
• OU - You

OK so here's our video for this lesson - all about "ew".

Click here - EW words

This video is also great for practicing those beginning consonant sounds if that's hard for you

stew - crew - threw - blew

So, how do you tell whether a word has a "oo" or a "you" sound?

Depends on if you are British or American for some words - Americans say new like "noo" and the British say "nyoo". Can you think of any others? How about "tube" and "dues"?

But many are obvious - you just don't think about it. How do you say "fuel"? You have to say it "fyoo-el" not "fool" because this is a different word, right?

"Cucumber" is said "cyoo-cumber" not "coo-cumber"

What about the word "education"? We say "ed -YOU-ca-tion" not "ed-oo-ca-tion" right?

University is said with "you" in front - I've seen ads that want to personalize their school to be perfect for you - so they spell it "YOU-niversity" - clever right?

Here's some more practice if you want -

http://www.theschoolhouse.us/lessons/lesson35.html Or download it in the File section for practice.

Remember that these words are not in separate categories - tell me which ones are OO and YOU - YOU can do it.

OK now for Short U - much easier.

These are simply the U by itself in a short word - or multi-syllable words too -

• Cut - Fun - Sun - Plus - Bus - Mud
• Umbrella - Umpire - Underpants

And of course, there are other spellings as well, with "o" and "oo" -

Love, Glove, Color, Flood, Blood (all "uh" sounds)

So, let's compare short "u" with short "a" -

Isn't it good to see the difference? Many pronunciation mistakes can be prevented by knowing these simple differences.

So, is your brain full yet?

Let's finish up with the review lesson - coming up next.