Depending on where you're from, teaching your students the difference between short I and short E might be harder than you'd think! We have this problem. It wasn't until I found a great blog post giving validation to my struggle that I realized this is a legit issue -- it's not just me, ha!

Over the years, our family has lived in several different states (and even overseas). All this time, I never really thought that I had much of an accent. That was until I started trying to teach my son how to spell, ha! No matter how hard I try, I personally can't separate the sounds of short I and short E (in certain words). It almost feels painful to deliberately say pen instead of pin or men instead of min. Every time I ask him to spell pen or men, he immediately jumps to pin or min. The same goes for get being spelled git. I find myself slowing it down and deliberately saying "g-eh-t" if I want to ensure he understands what I'm asking him to spell. I can't help but laugh about it, but it drives us both nuts!



Well, in the frustration of it all, I started looking up ways to help remedy this problem. Luckily, I ran across a fantastic article that validated our struggle! It helped me realize I'm not crazy. It's not just me. It turns out, there's a whole section of the country that typically struggles with this! Who knew?!

Thanks to the wonderful people at All About Spelling, I found a great game to help my son work on the spelling of words with the short I and short E sounds! I highly recommend checking out this free printable if your student has a similar struggle. I think it's something we're going to continue to play once a week to really reinforce it.





I would also recommend checking out the other great tips given by All About Spelling to help with distinguishing between the two sounds. If you're like me, you'll take all the help you can get! Hey...anything to make it easier on both you and your student, right?!