The Letter U
Alphabet Games
The letter U is a vowel and the twenty-first letter of the alphabet. Letter games and alphabet games are a great way to practice identifying the letter U. Beginning students can match several letter Us on the page or click on the U in the alphabet. As they become more accomplished with letter recognition and reading, students can fill in missing letters in their spelling words or arrange a set of letters to make a word. When children first learn the letter U, they are learning the long U sound. In reading, teachers say that a long vowel says its name. That means that a long vowel is said the same way as the name of the letter. We see the long U in “cute” and “use”. We hear the short U sounds in the words “cup”, “but”, “jug”, and “us”. Spelling with the letter U can be tricky. “Rule” has the same vowel sound as “fool”. It’s just spelled differently. In fact, “blue”, “move”, “flew”, and “soup” also have the same oo sound but different spellings. Use spelling games and lots of practice to help your students learn when to use U and when to use other vowels or vowel combinations.
