How to Teach the oi/oy Spelling Rule
Is it just us or does it seem that there are a ton of rules in the English language?
If you feel like spelling can be tricky to teach, you are not alone! Especially when it comes to vowel teams (where you have two vowels working together to make a new sound), things can get extra tricky!
Today we want to talk about one of the vowel diphthongs. Let’s start at the beginning -
What is a Vowel Diphthong?
A vowel diphthong occurs when two vowels work together to create a sliding sound (e.g., boy, join, trout). In diphthongs, one vowel sound is sliding into another. For example in the word “boy” we hear an /O/ sliding into an /E/. In the word “join” we also hear an /O/ sliding into an /E/.
How To Teach OI & OY - Spelling Process
When teaching spelling, we like to use a 4-Step Process:
1 - Identify how many syllables are in the word
We like to have students scoop the syllables, this is important because each syllable needs at least one vowel sound (which might be a vowel diphthong like OI or OY!)
2 - Identify how many sounds are in the word
We like to have students underline or dot the number of sounds they hear (this can be extra tricky with vowel diphthongs because some students hear each of the sliding sounds as separate and distinct sounds, we want to teach them to process this /O/-/E/ sound as one sound).
3 - Identify the type of sound
Is the sound a vowel sound or a consonant sound? If it is a vowel sound, is it a diphthong like oi/oy? Where do we see this pattern within the word (the middle? the end?) We can also think about the frequency of occurrence for the pattern (oy occurs 34% of the time and oi occurs 66% of the time so if we need to guess we should pick oi!)
4 - Identify the type of syllable
In the case of oi/oy it would be a vowel team syllable, the vowels are working together to create a new sound.
Explicitly Teaching the oi/oy Vowel Teams
When we teach a new pattern we start by sharing the pattern, having students practice writing the pattern while saying the sound(s) the pattern makes. In this case “O, I, says /oy/” and “O, Y, says /oy/.”
We provide a visual with a keyword or key phrase. For example, our key phrase for oi/oy is “destroy the poison” and so we provide a picture with a monster “destroy the poison” and have students practice associating the oi/oy pattern with the words “destroy and poison.”
We then provide explicit instruction on the rules the pattern follows. We use oi to spell /oy/ in the middle of a word or syllable and we use oy to spell /oy/ at the end of a word or syllable.
We move in a building progression from the sound level to the syllable/word level and then have students generalize to the sentence level, paragraph level, and beyond. As we work through the building progression, we want to make sure we have cohesion and are supporting students’ working memory. One of the ways we do this is by aligning the connected text passage to the keyword or keyphrase. So for example, when teaching OI and OY our passage might be about poison and different things to watch out for or ways to “destroy” poison in our environment.
How do I get started?
If you need help mastering all these rules, we’ve got you. We put all the rules we teach together in our Comprehensive Rules Guide which you can grab here! It’s a fabulous place to get started.
Or, if you’re ready for the next step and you’re looking for comprehensive lesson materials to explicitly teach all of the phonogram patterns, you can check out our systematic phonics-based curriculum, Delivering SMARTER Intervention here.