How to Teach the ai/ay Spelling Rule

Play, rain, made, steak…there are so many words with the long A sound!

Two of the most common ways to get this sound when spelling are the vowel teams ‘ai’ and ‘ay.’

Now, with all of the different long A sounds, this might seem a bit overwhelming for students, but with systematic and clear instruction, we can make it much more straightforward!

Both “ai” and “ay” say the long A sound.

We use “ai” in the middle of the word (think rain, pail, train, mail) and “ay” at the end of the word (play, stay, day, May).

To help our students remember this rule, we use the key phrase “Play in the Rain.”

Where students might get stuck with the long A sound:

Homophones

With our ‘ai’ vowel team there are several words that have a Magic E homophone. When we teach this rule to our students, we like to point this out and use it as an opportunity to build up a student’s vocabulary knowledge. Here are some of the common homophones that we will teach:

• Plain (I’ll usually use the example - “Do you want plain yogurt or strawberry yogurt?”) and Plane (like an airplane!)

• Mail (when you receive a letter or a package) and Male (a boy or a man)

• Tail (like on a monkey or a dog) and Tale (a story)

• Pail (a bucket) or Pale (light in color)

How we teach the ai & ay vowel team patterns -

We always follow the same pattern of instruction. In every single lesson, we work through targeted ai/ay activities for all 5 Core Components of literacy (phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension) as they relate to reading, and then again as they relate to spelling.

If you’re interested in grabbing our ai/ay lessons, click below!

(Music Credit to Bensound.com)