Difference between long and short vowels?

All of the vowels in those words are short. For the differences (you can hear it when you say the words out loud), a long vowel will sound like it is said (so for a, long a is a, short a is ah or aa--short a word: apple, cat long a word: hang, gave). For more examples with the other vowels: E: short: bed, left Long e: heed, deep; I: short: chimp, pig long: hive, glide O: short: hot, dog long: cold, hope U: short: hum, dump long: huge, cute Hope it helps!

[All, first, they, when, said] are all sight words. You usually can't sound out these kind of words. You just remember them and try to recognize them when you see them. You would not mark these long or short. Sight words don't follow the usual rules of English. Long vowels say their names in words, such as in ape, cape, eagle, eat, ice, oats, unicorn. Vowels can also have a short sound. Words with only one vowel are usually short. Ex. cat, bed, kick, cot, duck. Some longer words can have a short vowel sound if there is only one vowel in that syllable of the word. Ex. casket: cas-ket Both vowels in this word are short. Some words have both a long vowel and a short vowel. Ex. naked: na-ked The a is long (hear it saying its name) and the e is short. Teacher1

i bet the word "first" has a long vowel [ir:], and the rest have short vowels.

To make this a little plainer. The long vowels say their names. A E I O U The short vowels is what you hear if you say, for example (A)apple (E)Ben (I)igloo (O)ostrich (U)up Hope this helped.