Vowel Teams - The Reading & Spelling Rules That Nobody Taught You

Is it just us, or does it seem like there are so many rules to reading and spelling that we never learned while we were in school?

Truthfully, there are so many rules that it can be hard to keep track of them all. That said, knowing some of the basics can absolutely make reading and spelling easier.

Understanding the six syllable types is an important step in recognizing the different reading and spelling rules.

If you’ve never heard of the six syllable types, you’re not alone! You can read more about them here! The reason that syllable types are important is because the type of syllable helps to predict the vowel sound.

Sometimes vowels (including vowel teams) create a short vowel sound, sometimes they create a long vowel sound, and sometimes they create a different sound altogether.

Today we are talking about -

Vowel Teams

A vowel team syllable occurs when you have two vowels (touching one another) working together to make one sound. Vowel teams are a bit complicated because letters W and Y can act as vowels when working together with other vowels (ow, aw, ey, oy). Vowel teams can work together to create a short sound, a long sound, or a sliding sound. There are a few different types of vowel teams:

Vowel digraphs -

Occur when two vowels work together to create one sound (e.g., rain, green, goat, moon, etc.).

Vowel diphthongs -

Occur when two vowels work together to create a sliding sound (e.g., boy, join, trout). In diphthongs, one vowel sound is sliding into another.

Vowel team syllables (digraphs/diphthongs) can be difficult because many of these patterns have more than one sound. For example, EA is a vowel digraph that has three sounds /E/ - long sound, /e/ - short sound, /A/ - long sound (as in eat, bread, and steak). We must teach each of the different phonogram (sound) patterns so that students can recognize these patterns and the different sound options.

How To Teach Vowel Teams - Reading Process

We always follow a step-by-step process to teach vowel teams:

1 - Find/color the vowel team in red

This is the process of identifying the vowel team, also known as “orthographic recognition.” Being able to “see” and recognize the pattern within a word. We like to have students also practice identifying each vowel and determining whether the vowels are a digraph (we connect the vowel dots with a line) or a diphthong (we connect the vowel dots with a squiggle).

2 - Read the syllable with the most common/likely sound first

Many vowel teams have more than one sound (e.g., ea, ie, ou, ow) so we may need to try each sound option until the word is recognized.

3 - Determine if the word is a real word and makes sense given the context

It will be important for students to identify first if the word is a real word (have I ever heard of this word?)

Next, it will be important to use the context of the phrase, sentence, or passage to determine if the word is right given the context. Sometimes we can read a word and recognize it as a real word, but it’s not the right word for the context (e.g., “bow” as in the bow we wear (vowel digraph) and “bow” as in the action to bend over or the front of a ship (vowel diphthong).

4 - If the word is not a real word or does not make sense given the context, try less common likely vowel team sounds to read the syllable/word

This is why it is incredibly important to focus on vocabulary development as part of our reading and spelling instruction!

How To Teach Vowel Teams - 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 team!). In this example, the students used caterpillars to mark the syllables.

2 - Identify how many sounds are in the word

We like to have students underline or dot the number of sounds they hear (this is important because often vowel teams have one sound but two or more letters making that sound). In this example, the students used flowers to mark the sounds.

3 - Identify the type of sound

Is the sound a vowel sound or a consonant sound? Students can color code if helpful but it’s mostly important as they think about each syllable and determining if every syllable has at least one vowel.

4 - Identify the type of syllable

For example, if we hear a vowel sound - do we have a vowel team, a VCE syllable, a single vowel as part of a closed syllable? If we have a vowel team, we need to think about which vowel team makes the most sense. So in the example, the students would need to consider “ou” versus “ow” spelling options.

Let’s take a look at how this works with another example:

If we are working to spell the word “rainbow” we would first identify how many syllables are in the word (there are 2 syllables “rain” and “bow”).

Next, we would identify how many sounds are in the word (there are 5 sounds /r/ /A/ /n/ /b/ /O/).

Then, we would identify the type of each sound (/r/ = consonant/r, /A/ = long vowel, /n/ = consonant, /b/ = consonant, /O/ = long vowel).

Finally, we identify the type of each syllable. This is where things get tricky!!!

• /r/ = could be a Bossy R but because we have another vowel in this syllable, it’s just a consonant spelled “r”

• /A/ = could be a VCE syllable (a-e) or vowel team (with possible spelling options ai, ay, ea, eight, ei)

• /n/ = consonant spelled “n”

• /b/ = consonant spelled “b”

• /O/ = could be a VCE syllable (o-e) or vowel team (with possible spelling options oa, oe, ow)

Explicitly Teaching Vowel Teams

Vowel teams are one of the most COMPLICATED syllable types to teach. This takes time because you want to teach each pattern explicitly. We like to start with the more basic patterns (e.g., AI or AY) because they have one sound option and then move on to more complex patterns (e.g., OU or OW) that have multiple sound options.

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.

We provide a visual with a keyword or key phrase. For example, if we were teaching the pattern OW we would provide a picture of a snow plow and have students practice associating the OW pattern with a snow plow to remember both sound options.

We then provide explicit instruction on the rules the pattern follows. For example, we use AI to spell /A/ in the middle 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.

That’s it! While it’s certainly not simple, it is effective! And - once you get into the groove, it becomes so much easier.

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.