Teaching vowel teams in first grade

What Is A Vowel Team? What Are Some Ideas for Teaching Vowel Teams?

You probably already know that the vowels in English make multiple sounds. The long sound of each vowel “says the vowel’s name” (for example, the o in “both” makes the sound /ō/). There are different ways to spell long vowel sounds, including silent e and…vowel teams!

In this blog post, I’m going to explain vowel teams, give some examples, and share some fun ideas for teaching vowel teams in the primary grades!

A vowel team is a spelling pattern that uses two or more letters to represent a single vowel sound.

Often, the vowel sound for a vowel team is long (like the long e in “neat”), but sometimes vowels work together to make other sounds (like the short e in “bread”). In this post, we’re going to focus mostly on the long sounds – but I do also teach students about words where vowel teams do not make long vowel sounds.

Long a vowel teams include: ai, ay, eigh, ey (examples: paid, say, neigh, they)

I typically only teach ai and ay in 1st and 2nd grade, but I point out eigh or ey when they appear in the context of a text or word we’re studying.

Long e vowel teams include: ea, ee, ey, ie, ei (examples: seat, feet, key, thief, receive)

I typically only teach ea, ee, and ie in 1st and 2nd grade.

Long i vowel teams include: ie, igh (examples: pie, right).

Long o vowel teams include: oe, oa, ow (examples: toe, boat, blow)

Long u vowel teams include: ue, eu, ew (examples: argue, feud, pew)

One tricky thing about long u is that the sound can be the name of the letter (as in the word “few”) OR the /oo/ sound (as in the word “tube”).

Sometimes vowel teams are also called “vowel digraphs.” I prefer the term “vowel team” because digraph = 2 letters, and some vowel teams (like igh) include more than one letter.

I teach vowel teams after students have demonstrated mastery of:

• Short vowel sounds and spellings
• Long vowel sounds
• Silent e

I’ve heard that, in some places, vowel teams are taught before silent e. However, I prefer to teach vowel teams after working on silent e, because silent e feels a bit more “straightforward” to me. There are many different vowel teams, and mastery often takes years! (So if your students struggle with vowel teams…you’re not alone!)

I usually introduce vowel teams at the end of 1st grade. We may also discuss them in mid-1st grade, as they come up in the context of reading or high frequency words. For example, I point out that the ay in “day” makes the long a sound. But it’s usually late 1st grade when we work on decoding (reading) AND encoding (spelling) words with vowel teams.

We also cover vowel teams in 2nd grade, and I introduce a few more exceptions (i.e. the “ea” team making the long e or short e sound).

Again, the vowel teams take a long time to master, so you will see students who need more practice even beyond 2nd grade. Learning words with vowel teams requires some degree of memorization. There often isn’t one solid “rule” to explain why “ee” is used in a word (vs. “ea”), for example. Students simply need a lot of practice with vowel team words, and that takes time.

When I chose target weekly spelling words for the vowel team weeks of my From Sounds to Spelling phonics program, I intentionally chose highly useful words. Students are expected to memorize those words (i.e. the word “road”), so I wanted to make sure that they were words students would need to spell often.

There’s no one right “order” to teach vowel teams – but I typically focus on one long vowel sound per week (covering 2-3 spelling patterns throughout the week). If we’re studying long a, for example, we cover ai and ay. Students learn each pattern individually, and then they compare and contrast the patterns. I look for students to have mastered 80% or more of their weekly words before we move on to other vowel teams.

Displaying vowel teams that make the same sounds is also helpful!

If you’d like an exact scope and sequence for teaching vowel teams and other phonics patterns, grab a free scope and sequence here.

If you’re looking for games to have your students play (either independently or in groups of 2-3), I have No-Prep phonics games for teaching vowel teams! Check those out here for 1st grade and 2nd grade.

Another idea is to use decodable readers. This provides students multiple opportunities within the same text to practice a specific skill. In this case, I have decodable readers geared toward teaching vowel teams in 1st grade and teaching vowel teams in 2nd grade.

Here are some of my favorite teaching activities for working with vowel teams! They come from my phonics program, From Sounds to Spelling, but they can be incorporated into any program.

• Blend to read words with vowel teams (example: I’ll have 3 cards including one of my vowel team sound cards, r-ai-n, students say /r/ /ā/ /n/, rain; notice how the vowel team is written on a single word card because the letters work together to represent a single sound)
• Write words with vowel teams; make words with magnetic letters
• Vowel team word sort (students cut out the words and paste them in the correct column based on their spelling pattern)
• Vowel team “sort and write” (students divide blank paper into columns for different vowel teams that represent the same sound, like “ea” and “ee;” you call out a word – one students have been practicing – and students write the word into the correct column)
• Circle, underline, or highlight words with vowel teams BEFORE or AFTER reading a decodable text (this is great for getting students to recognize vowel teams in context!)

And of course…we love vowel team games! In this Vowel Spelling Patterns Outer Space Race, students move around the board, collecting words with vowel team spelling patterns. They write the words onto their recording sheets:

I hope these vowel team teaching ideas are helpful to you!

For complete lesson plans, posters, games, and decodable texts for vowel teams and many other phonics programs, check out From Sounds to Spelling, a comprehensive phonological awareness and phonics program for K-2.

Happy teaching!

How to Teach Vowel Teams

by Shirley Houston

Vowel teams are probably the most common source of reading and spelling errors as one vowel sound may be represented by as many as 6 different vowel teams (e.g. long ‘o’ represented by ‘oa’, ‘ow’, ‘oe’, ‘o_e,’ ‘ough’ and ‘ew’ as in sew). There are 25 standard vowel teams and, consequently, it is vital that they are taught well.

In this blog post, I am going to examine how to teach vowel teams. They are the focus of Part 2 of Phonics Hero and additional vowel teams (‘oi’/’oy’, ‘ow’/’ou’, ‘oo’, ‘aw’/’au’) are introduced in Part 3 (get access to lots of free resources in a Teacher Account). To teach vowel teams well, you firstly need to understand how they work.

We have 18 vowel sounds in English but only 5 vowel letters with which to represent them so it is necessary to use combinations of the vowel letters. The correct terminology for 2 vowels working together to represent one sound is ‘vowel digraph’. The letters ‘y’, ‘w’, ‘gh’ and ‘r’ are also used in representations of vowel sounds (as in ‘ay’, ‘ow’, ‘igh’ and ‘er’), so I quite like using the term ‘vowel teams’ with younger students. I use the terms “weak” and “strong” vowels rather than “short” and “long” vowels as it is hard for young children to understand what is short or long about them (long vowels require two mouth movements rather than one – a bit complicated for a six-year-old!). I’ll be using those terms to refer to the sounds represented by vowel teams.

How to Teach Vowel Teams – Things You Need to Know

Why are consonant letters used in vowel teams?

There is logic to the use of consonants in vowel teams. We use the letter ‘y’ in vowel teams because English words can’t end in ‘i’. The ‘y’ stands in for the ‘i’ at the end of a base word (e.g. hail/hay). English words can’t end in ‘u’, so ‘w’ (literally a double ‘u’) stands in for the ‘u’ at the end of a base word (e.g. bout/bow).

What is a diphthong?

A diphthong is not a new type of uncomfortable underwear, but rather one (complex) vowel sound formed by the combination of two vowel sounds in a syllable. It is sometimes referred to as a “glide” because the mouth glides from the position for one vowel to the position for another. There are 8 English diphthongs, including the vowel team pairs ‘oi’/’oy’ and ‘ou’/’ow’. Most vowel sounds are made with the mouth in one position, making one pure sound e.g. /a/.

What are split digraphs?

The vowel digraph teams ‘ee’, ‘ie’, ‘oe’ and ‘ue’ are used in common words while ‘ae’ is used in a few technical words e.g. ‘aerate’ and ‘aesthetic’. Split digraphs are separated members of a vowel team – they are separated by a consonant. For example, the ‘ie’ in ‘bike’ is split to become ‘i_e’. Split digraphs combine the letter ‘e’ with the five vowels to represent strong vowel sounds.

When talking about split digraphs, be careful of the language you use. Do not use the terms “fairy e”, “magic e”, “bossy e” or “silent e”, as they do not help a student to understand the logic of our code. The ‘e’ is no more “silent” when it is split from its team member (as it is split in ‘eve’, ‘line’, ‘bone’, ‘rude’ or ‘cave’) than when it was right next to the other vowel. We are still looking at an e-controlled vowel spelling. Likewise, there is no logic in “silent letters” – all letters are silent! Nor is the letter ‘e’ more bossy than any of the other vowels that come second in a pair.

Code overlap

The complication for reading is that some vowel digraphs represent more than one sound. For example:

This is a focus of Part 3 of Phonics Hero. When you come across alternative pronunciations for the vowel digraphs, take the time to discuss the other uses, to clarify any confusion.

Why do we use gh in vowel spellings?

The ‘gh’ combination, like in the word ‘high’, was inherited from the Germanic languages that had an impact on English. We used to pronounce the ‘gh’ in Old English, but as something like a ‘k’ sound e.g. the Gaelic word, lough (loch). The German for ‘light’ is ‘licht’ and ‘night’ is ‘nacht’. When Middle English changed to Modern English, the sound was dropped or, in some words, changed to the softer ‘f’, as in ‘rough’. The ‘gh’ has been left in the spelling to show the word’s origin.

How To Teach Vowel Teams – Some Tips:

• Teach the most common vowel sounds first – the strong /e/, /i/, /o/, /a/ and /u/. Part 2 of our interactive, click-and-go Phonics Lessons will help you systematically teach this logic.


• In spelling instruction, teach the most common vowel team spellings of a vowel sound first, e. g. for the long ‘a’ sound teach ‘ai’ before ‘ay’ and eventually ‘eigh’ as an extension for those who can manage the more advanced logic.


• In reading instruction, teach the most common pronunciation of a vowel team first e.g. ‘ey’ as long ‘e’ (e.g. ‘donkey’) before ‘ey’ as long ‘a’ (e.g. ‘they’).


• Teach irregular vowel team spellings as camera/tricky words e.g. ‘people’ and ‘leopard’.


• DO NOT teach “when two vowels go out walking, the first one does the talking”. While it holds true for some common words, this pattern is true in less than 40% of vowel team pronunciations e.g. it does not apply in ‘oi’, ‘au’, ‘ou’ and ‘ew’ and in r-controlled vowel teams, such as ‘our’ – the vowel sounds are completely changed.


• Given the number of influences on the English language, it is better to talk about “usual”’ patterns rather than use the term “rules”.


• Teach the logic of the code in regards to the placement of vowel teams e.g. English words don’t end in ‘i’ so ‘ai’ is used in the middle of a base word and ‘ay’ at the end. They don’t end in ‘u’ so ‘ow’ and ‘aw’ are used at the end of a word, not ‘ou’ or ‘au’. Teach the patterns explicitly e.g. ‘ai’/’ay’, ‘oi’/’oy’, ‘ei’/’ey’.


• If students are to use plastic or magnetic letters in vowel teamwork, be sure to buy those that have the digraph as one piece.


• Use sound (Elkonin) boxes and/or sound buttons to highlight the fact that a ‘team’ can represent a single vowel sound.


• To help students understand split digraphs, have them identify the component sounds of a word (e.g. ‘cake’ includes /c/, /a_e/ and /k/). Have them represent the e-controlled vowel spelling as ‘ae’ on paper then cut the letters apart and insert the consonant (in this case, ‘k’). We’ve made a worksheet for each of the split digraphs – download our FREE worksheets.Use Phonics Hero’s FREE worksheets!
  
• Help students understand the power of a vowel team’s ability, together or split, to make a strong sound by teaching weak/strong pairs, such as bit/bite, mad/made. Use plastic or magnetic letters that have vowels in a different colour to consonants as the difference highlights the teams.


• Because there are no rules that tell us when to use certain representations of vowel sounds, other than placement rules related to use of ‘i’ or ‘u’ at the end of words, mastery is dependent on familiarity with words. Use of the Phonics Hero games is ideal for giving students multiple exposures to each word, in reading and spelling. Get started with a Teacher Account.


• If children are unsure which spelling choice to use, suggest that they have a go with a vowel table, like the example below. They should try each spelling choice and make a decision as to which one looks right. A vowel table will help children identify the correct vowel team.
  The Phonics Hero games also enable a student to have a go and make the decision about which one looks right. In the example below, a child is having a go at representing ‘birthday’. Children can try each spelling choice, clicking it to remove it, and clicking the tick when they have made a decision. Practise choosing the right vowel team with Phonics Hero.
  
• Do phoneme searches for representations of a vowel sound or vowel team searches for code overlap in decodable text.
  


• Create a vowel sound chart with your students, showing the various ways of spelling a vowel sound and a key word/picture as a memory jogger. Create a copy, cut it up into cards then have students do a word/picture sort, recreating the chart.


• In tutoring, I like students to select an image of each spelling that is meaningful to them. Together, we create a reading or spelling slide show with each slide showing the vowel teams for a particular sound with an image for each, e.g. one little girl in love with all things “Frozen” chose as her long ‘o’ images: snow for ‘ow’, Olaf for ‘o’, and the advertising picture for the Frozen movie for ‘o-e’.


• There are lots of activities involving games and movement that you can use to teach vowel teams. Here’s one idea: Save the lanyards with plastic cardholders from Professional Learning you go to. Write the vowels, w, y and gh on cards in one colour. Write consonants on cards in another colour. Put the cards into the holders. Ask students to each wear a lanyard. Call out a word and ask the students wearing the required letters to stand in order to spell the word. Who will be part of the vowel team representing the vowel sound will be a source of discussion. This activity emphasises the need for a team effort.

Be sure to make your vowel team teaching systematic, explicit, sequential, multisensory and cumulative.

Author: Shirley Houston

Summary of the lesson on teaching literacy on the topic "Vowels" (Grade 1)

Summary of the lesson "teaching literacy", Program OS "School 2100", Grade 1

Topic: Vowel sounds

Target and: to introduce students to the vowel sounds "a", "o", "u", "e", "s", "and"; give the concept of "vowel sound", develop phonemic hearing, instill interest in the word, develop fine motor skills of the hands.

Lesson 9 progress0004