Long a Words

Learning to spell words with long vowel sounds can be confusing for young learners, especially when one sound can be spelled several different ways. That’s why this Long a Words printable is such a helpful tool for students in Year 1 and Year 2. This free resource is designed to support phonics lessons by focusing on the long a sound and the common graphemes that represent it.

 

What’s Included in the Resource?

This free printable spelling list presents the long a

sound using four common graphemes:

• a as in apron or apron

• ai as in rain, train, paint

• ay as in day, play, stay

• a_e (split digraph) as in cake, snake, game

Each column includes a variety of age-appropriate words to help students see the different ways the same vowel sound can be spelled.

 

Why This Resource Works

This Long a Words printable helps students:

• Recognise and read long a words in different spellings

• Improve their spelling and phonics knowledge

• See patterns in word construction

• Build confidence when writing long vowel words

By grouping words by spelling pattern, the resource allows students to make visual and phonetic connections between the sound and how it’s written.

 

Perfect for Classrooms and Home Learning

Whether you’re a teacher or a parent, this resource is a flexible and helpful addition to your phonics toolkit. It’s ideal for:

• Phonics and spelling lessons

• Word sorts and hands-on literacy centres

• Homework or take-home study sheets

• Independent writing support

You can also enlarge it and use it as a classroom poster or laminate copies for regular use.

 

Extension Activities

Take learning even further with these fun and simple ideas:

• Have students highlight or colour-code the different graphemes

• Ask students to write silly sentences or stories using one grapheme at a time

• Use word cards to play matching or sorting games

• Encourage students to add their own long a words to each column

 

Download Your Free Copy

This Long a Words resource is free to download and ready to use straight away. You’ll find it on the Smart Boarding School website, along with many other free phonics and spelling tools designed for primary students.