In this post, I offer a free oa and ow reading passage. The story is about a cub that wants to roam in the Savannah’s of Africa by himself. However, his mom is concerned that he’s not big enough to roam the land without guidance. Thus, she convinces him to stay close and to practice roaring instead. Here’s the oa and ow reading passage:

oa/ow Book

The oa and ow reading passage is designed for kids working on long vowel sounds. These are sounds that say a vowel name. For example, oa says the long o sound as in “boat.” In addition, ow says the long o sound as in “crow.” Yes, ow also makes another sound—ow as in “town.” However, if you’re focusing on systematic phonics instruction, it might be best to introduce just ow as in “crow” first. Later, your student can master the second ow sound.

Teaching vocabulary while using phonics books

Before your student reads the oa and ow reading passage, you can go over the concept of the story: “This is a story about a cub that likes adventures. Have you ever wanted to explore something?” This can provide a little opportunity for your student to begin to relate to the main character.

In addition, you can review vocabulary words. Decodable books use limited vocabulary—that’s because beginning readers can only read certain word types! However, you can still teach vocabulary at this time. Use short, efficient mni-lessons so you can get right back to teaching decoding skills.

For this oa and ow reading passage, you can introduce meander and dominant. “Meander means to walk in a windy path. We usually meander when we’re exploring a new or beautiful place. Have you ever meandered before? If so, where?”

Since the story is about lions, you can also introduce dominant. “Dominant means very powerful and in charge. Lions are the dominant animals on the plains of Africa. They are the strongest, fiercest animals, so they can scare other animals away.”

oa and ow words

In the oa and ow reading passage, I used several long o words. If you’re interested in creating wordlists for your student, you can select from the following oa and ow words. However, be sure to weave in short vowel sounds and long vowel sounds. If you are a regular reader of Reading Elephant, you know repeating the same word type again and again does not allow kids to develop decoding skills. They’ll pick up on the repetition and mindlessly repeat the sound.

Thus, to get started, here’s a sample word list:

1. toast
2. gust
3. beak
4. sail
5. tag
6. foam
7. stake
8. drip
9. shown
10. may
11. dress
12. glow
13. flop
14. glee
15. chain
16. loan
17. nail
18. toss
19. row
20. spun

I italicized the oa and ow words. As you can see, the student cannot guess at the sounds. Each successive word has a different sound pattern, and thus, he must really analyze the words. If you create lessons and activities with the spirit of interleaving, like above, your student will develop decoding skills.

oa words

Toast, gloat, boast, roam, goat, coat, groan, coast, roast, boat, moat, float

ow words

Know, bow, low, row, sow, crow, blow, flow, glow, slow, snow, shown

New long vowel series coming

I’m currently developing my long vowel series. The FREE oa and ow reading passage above is a sample of the upcoming series. This time, I decided to add fluency bundles to all sound units. As a result, kids can develop even better reading speed.

I hope your student likes the story!