💜 Now your child can read these words! If the final syllable of a word includes LE, will the vowel be long or short? Starting with the “e”, count back three letters. If the letter before, that is a consonant, that’s called a closed syllable (the vowel is “closed in” by the consonant), and the vowel is short: Sam-ple , short a Rum-ple, short u Wob-ble, short o But if you count back three, and the previous letter is a vowel, that syllable is open (no vowel closes it in!) and the vowel is long and