What are Vowel Teams?
Vowel Teams are two side-by-side vowels that come together to make one sound. Examples of vowel teams are /ea/ in the word eat and /ie/ in the word pie. Unfortunately vowel teams don’t always represent the same sound in every word, which can make them tricky, especially for early readers. For example, /ea/ can have the long e sound like in the word eat. But it can also represent different sounds like in the words head and break.
Why Should You Teach Vowel Teams?
Students will need to have a general understanding of short vowel sounds and long vowel sounds before being introduced to vowel teams, because vowel teams add an extra level of complexity. Once students have been taught about vowel teams and have learned examples of common words that contain them, their reading fluency will improve significantly.
Learning vowel teams can also help to reduce spelling errors. This is because students that understand vowel teams have a better understanding of short vowel sounds, long vowel sounds and the unique sounds produced by common vowel teams. This connection between the sounds and the letter combination helps students to spell more accurately based on how a word sounds.
Understanding Vowel Teams
Vowel teams are considered digraphs because 2 letters produce one sound. Some vowel teams are considered diphthongs, since 2 vowels with their own sounds are combined to form a new sound. For example /oi/ in the word boil.
A common phrase that teachers use when talking about vowel teams is “when two vowels go out walking, the first one does the talking.” While this is catchy it can be damaging to vowel teams overall, because it is often not true and can lead to mistakes and confusion.
3 Tips for Teaching Vowel Teams
- Have a separate visual of the most common words that include tricky vowel sounds. Make sure it’s easy for students to see, so they can reference it as needed. Reinforcement and practice are crucial to helping your students to master vowel teams.
- Make practicing fun! Set up a magnet spelling station with your vowel team words. This gives students hands-on practice building, spelling and reading words that contain vowel teams.
- Pause and point out vowel teams when reading aloud to the class. Making the connection between the words learned individually and finding them in engaging text makes learning relevant and more memorable.
Bonus Tip! Practice vowel teams on paper with worksheets that include the images associated with the words. These images are especially helpful for young learners because they tend to know the pronunciation and meaning of many more words than they can read or spell. Associating familiar images to the words on paper, creates additional opportunities for students to make important connections and increase their reading vocabulary.
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These printables are designed specifically to help your students practice vowel teams! Enjoy.