Short Vowels Word Search
This short vowels word search has forty words for early readers, eight for each vowel: clam and stamp for a, sled and tent for e, swim and twin for i, pond and soft for o, plum and skunk for u.
Every word here has a single vowel with a consonant after it, the pattern that usually keeps a vowel short. Put a silent e on the end and the vowel often turns long, so twin becomes twine and plum becomes plume. One spelling rule belongs to short vowels alone: at the end of a one-syllable word, f, l, s and z are usually doubled after a short vowel, as in dress, and teachers call it the floss rule after a word that follows it. A short vowel also explains the doubled letter in swimming and hopping. The extra consonant keeps the vowel short, while hoping, with one p, comes from hope.
The names short and long are older than the sounds they label. In Middle English a long vowel really was held for longer. Between about 1400 and 1700 the Great Vowel Shift moved the long vowels to new sounds, so the a in name stopped sounding like the a in father, while the short vowels stayed close to where they were. Dictionaries still mark a short vowel with a small curved sign called a breve, from the Latin brevis, short.
Free Short Vowels Word Search Online Game
Play the Short Vowels word search in your browser, on your own or head to head against a friend in real time. Nothing to install and no account needed – send someone the link and you are both looking at the same grid.
Short Vowels Word Search Printable Puzzles
Three sheets to choose from, free to print or download as a PDF. Pick a difficulty below, or open the printable Short Vowels word search page to see all three together, generate a fresh grid, and check the full word list.
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Hard
15x15 grid, up to 23 hidden words
Print or Download pdf -
Medium
12x12 grid, up to 15 hidden words
Print or Download pdf -
Easy
10x10 grid, 5 words across and down
Print or Download pdf
Puzzle Vocabulary Words
Below you can see all possible words that the topic Short Vowels has.
Depends on difficulty level you select in the game amount of words hidden in the puzzle will be different.
In Easy game you have to find up to 5 words, medium game can have up to 15 words and hard puzzle can have up to 23 words.
Every time you start a new game - our word search generator will pick random words to build the puzzle.
- Band
- Belt
- Bend
- Blob
- Camp
- Clam
- Clog
- Club
- Crib
- Crust
- Dress
- Drip
- Golf
- Grab
- Hunt
- Lift
- Lost
- Mask
- Mitt
- Plot
- Plum
- Pond
- Raft
- Skip
- Skunk
- Sled
- Snap
- Snug
- Soft
- Spend
- Split
- Spot
- Stamp
- Step
- Stump
- Swim
- Tent
- Tusk
- Twin
- Vest