long u /ū/

long u is the /ū/ sound like in ‘cute’, or when the vowel says its name.

1. /ū/ can be spelled ew, like in ‘flew’
   2. /ū/ can be spelled ui, like in ‘fruit’
   3. /ū/ can be spelled ue, like in ‘blue’
   4. when the silent e uses its magic, like in ‘cute’ (see part 2, lesson 9, magic e)
   6. /ū/ can be spelled oo, like in ‘moon’ (see part 3, lesson 19, scoot)
   5. even sometimes /ū/ can be spelled ou, like in ‘group’

Let’s be honest here. This letter sound is very hard. It is not reliable for spelling. It has many spellings that sound the same (homonyms, like blew blue). The so-called ‘u’ sound is sometimes a ‘yoo’ sound and sometimes a ‘oo’ sound (blew = oo)(cute = yoo). There are some rules for these (like words that start with ch, d, j, l, r or s say ‘oo’), but that’s a lot to remember, and some letters like ‘t’ can say either sound. So we’ve made some great word lists and a practice sheet for you to recognize the ‘u’ sound in all it’s tricky spots.

Stay tuned ! (see, you could pronounce that ‘tooned’ or ‘tyooned’). /ū/ spelled oo, like in ‘scoot’ is below and we’ll make some more video lessons soon.

Meanwhile, do the ‘u’ sound practice sheet, review the ‘long u’ word list, and then you have a free pass to skip to the next lesson !

moon, toot, scoot, balloon, soon