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When teaching young students, it can be difficult to know whether or not a student is reading for comprehension. Being able to accurately read words aloud demonstrates fluency, but it doesn’t tell a teacher if the student understands what they’re reading. Reading comprehension is a more advanced skill and requires students to process and understand as they are reading.

Why Reading for Comprehension is Important

Once students have decoding and vocabulary skills, the next step in their journey is reading comprehension. Students need to be taught to connect the words they are reading to thoughts and ideas. Without these connections, a child can read an entire paragraph and have no idea what it was about. If comprehension isn’t taught early and properly, children can develop a negative relationship with reading and try to avoid the action altogether.

3 Tips for Teaching Reading Comprehension

Create a Safe Space - Like all skills, reading comprehension will develop at a different rate for each of the students in your classroom. It’s crucial that they feel comfortable telling you when they don’t understand certain words or are becoming frustrated. Without this communication, students are more likely to fall behind or stop trying.
Use Visual Aids - Visual aids reign supreme in all subjects, and reading for comprehension is no different. For younger students, it can be as simple as showing them a picture of an animal and having them write out the name of the animal. For a more advanced strategy, show your students a picture of a house or a slice of pizza and have them write a short sentence about it. These exercises will help your students recall words that they associate with the ideas and concepts they want to express.
“Cloze” Task - This activity is a great place to start with students at any reading level. Simply choose a generic sentence at their reading level and remove one of the words. Ask your students to pull a word from memory and insert it into the sentence. It can be a word as simple as “dog” or as challenging as “hospital” or “helicopter."

3 Easy Ways to Check for Understanding

Have Students Summarize What They Read - Once your students can read and conceptualize full sentences, have them read small paragraphs and summarize what they read. This is a great activity to do with small groups and can inspire conversations that further deepen students’ connections with the text.
Ask Specific Questions - While your students are reading, ask them specific questions about what they’re reading. For instance, if they’re reading a paragraph about a man who is walking his big dog Spot, wait for them to finish and then ask them what size the dog was.
Have Students Follow Written Instructions - A great way to check your class’s progress as a whole is to put written directions on the board and observe whether or not your students can follow them. Based on the complexity of the directions, you can gauge whether students comprehend the directions or need additional support.

Additional Resources

Reading comprehension is an important skill that your students will continue to strengthen and develop in every grade. A strong foundation in the early grades helps students to begin making important connections as they read and to develop a love of reading. For engaging printables designed to help you students practice reading comprehension skills, click here.

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Teaching vowel teams can be a challenging task, but it is an essential component of learning to read and write proficiently. Learning to recognize and understand vowel teams can greatly improve a child's reading and writing skills. Let’s explore some effective strategies for teaching vowel teams to help your students become confident and competent readers and writers.

What Are Vowel Teams?

Vowel teams are combinations of two or more vowels that work together to create a single sound in a word. When two or more vowels are next to each other, they can form a vowel team, and produce a unique sound that is different from the individual sounds of each vowel. Examples of common vowel teams include "ai," "ee," "oa," "ou," and "ie." Vowel teams can be challenging for young readers to recognize and understand. However, mastering the recognition and use of vowel teams is a critical component of developing strong reading and writing skills.

When Should You Teach Vowel Teams?

Typically, vowel teams are introduced in the first grade, but this can vary depending on students’ readiness. Teachers should begin teaching vowel teams once students have a good grasp of basic phonics and decoding skills and should introduce vowel teams gradually, starting with simple vowel combinations and gradually moving on to more complex combinations. It's essential to provide many opportunities for students to practice reading and writing words containing vowel teams, both in isolation and in context, to ensure that they fully understand the rules and patterns.

5 Strategies for How to Teach Students Vowel Teams

Word Sorting Activities - Students need to have a strong grasp of what individual vowels are before vowel teams are introduced in the mix. A great way to do this is through word sorting activities. Have students sort words that contain vowel teams, such as "boat" or "coin", into a separate category from words that only contain a single vowel, such as "cat" or "dog". This will help them begin to recognize words that contain vowel teams and understand the concept of a diphthong.
Word Families - Another effective teaching strategy is to use word families. Word families are groups of words that have the same ending, such as - at, -an, and -ot. These groups are great for teaching vowel teams because they allow students to see the different ways that vowel teams can be used in words. For example, the -oat word family includes words such as "boat", "coat", "goat", and "float". This helps students to recognize patterns in words and understand how vowel teams are used to make different words.
Visual Aids - Having a set of word cards and pictures in the classroom can help your students make simple associations. Try to have students match word cards that contain vowel teams, such as "boat" or "coin", to pictures that depict the corresponding word. This allows students to see the word in print and connect it with the corresponding image, which helps them to understand how vowel teams are used in words.
Poems and Tongue Twisters - Poems and tongue twisters often repeat certain sounds, like the ones vowel teams make. Print copies of a poem or tongue twisters that emphasizes several vowel teams and pass them to your students. As you read the page aloud, have your students highlight the repeating vowel team sounds they hear.
Anchor Charts - Teachers can use anchor charts as another way to visually reinforce vowel teams. Anchor charts can be a reminder of letter combinations, the sounds they produce, as well as the words that include them. Try to incorporate creativity into the anchor charts by finding ways to visually differentiate the vowel teams from other letters.

Avoid this Common Strategy When Teaching Vowel Teams

Avoid the clichés! Have you ever heard the phrase, “When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking?” While it does cleverly rhyme and is true for some vowel teams, it doesn’t apply to them all. Because there are so many exceptions and quirky rules for vowel teams, it’s best to avoid this phrase in the first palace.

Getting Started with Vowel Teams

By incorporating a variety of strategies such as the ones described above, teachers can help students develop a strong understanding of vowel teams and their associated sounds. Additionally, providing opportunities for students to practice using vowel teams in context through reading and writing activities can further reinforce their learning. With patience, persistence, and creativity, teachers can help their students master this important skill as part of their journey to become confident and effective readers and writers. For printables from my store to use with your students as you teach vowel teams, click here.

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English is both fascinating and challenging to teach and learn. While teaching basic letter sounds like /a/ and /b/ may seem straightforward, things quickly become complicated with vowel teams or diphthong vowel teams, where multiple letters combine to form a new sound. For instance, the letters OY in "boy" create the /oy/ sound, while the same letters make the /oi/ sound in "point." To help your students read and write words with diphthong vowel teams confidently, you need to employ effective and explicit teaching strategies. In this blog post, we'll explore some tips to make diphthong vowel teams easier for you and your students to master.

Why Should We Teach Diphthong Vowel Teams?

As a teacher, you may have come across words like "diphthong," "digraph," "trigraph," and "schwa" in your English language instruction, and perhaps felt a bit silly saying them. But the truth is, these terms are essential to understanding the English language's complex sound and spelling system. In the past, the "whole language approach" to reading education was prevalent, but it has since been replaced by the Science of Reading approach, which emphasizes teaching students the rules and patterns behind English words. Instead of memorizing words individually, students are taught to crack the code, leading to faster and more effective reading and writing skills. This is great news!

The Basics of Diphthong Vowel Teams

If you're a teacher who is just starting to teach your students about diphthong vowel teams, you may be wondering where to begin. First, let's define what a diphthong vowel team is - simply put, it's when two vowels come together as a team to create a new sound in a word. Common examples include EA, OW, OU, AU, AI, and more.

Before diving into teaching diphthong vowel teams, your students should have a firm grasp of foundational skills, such as knowing the difference between a vowel and a consonant, understanding short and long vowel sounds, and mastering VCE syllables. By building a strong foundation, your students will be better equipped to tackle the complexities of diphthong vowel teams and improve their reading and writing skills.

What Teachers Need to Know About Diphthong Vowel Teams

Teaching your students about diphthong vowel teams can be a daunting task when you consider the sheer number of vowel sounds and vowel teams in English. There are 18 vowel sounds made by just 5 English vowels, and at least 25 different vowel teams. To add to the complexity, one English vowel sound can be spelled by as many as six different vowel teams - take the long O sound in boat, row, toe, hope, though, and sew as an example. But don't let this discourage you! With the right strategies and techniques, you can help your students master these vowel teams and improve their reading and writing skills. Here are some of the most common diphthong vowel teams and examples of each to get you started.

Examples of Diphthong Vowel Teams

How to Teach Diphthong Vowel Teams

While there’s no set-in-stone order you must teach diphthong vowel teams, the key is to teach them with clear, explicit instruction, LOTS of practice, and opportunities to read and spell real words that include these spelling patterns. Here is the order taught in the Really Great Reading phonics curriculum, which is a Science of Reading based approach that has significant research backing it as an effective strategy to teach kids how to read and spell words:

LONG O vowel teams (oa, ow, oe, and ough)

LONG A vowel teams (ai, ay, eigh, and ea)

LONG I vowel teams (ie, igh)

LONG E vowel teams(ee, ea, ie, ey)

LONG U vowel teams (ue, ew)

4 Strategies for Teaching Diphthong Vowel Teams

Make 5 vowel posters/anchor charts for your classroom that represent the 5 long vowels. Draw a large symbol picture that you will consistently use to represent this sound, like an acorn, eagle, ocean, ice, and unicorn. As you learn the various vowel team spellings that also make these sounds, add the spelling to the posters and keep them visible throughout the room.
Create a Word Wall or graphic organizer for your students to add words they come across in authentic contexts that have the vowel teams you are currently teaching.
Incorporate the teaching method of orthographic mapping when introducing new vowel teams, such as -IGH. One effective approach is to highlight these three letters in red and the remaining letters in black when writing the word.
Once you have introduced vowel teams to your students, reinforce what they have learned with repeated practice. Click here for printables designed to help your students practice vowel teams.

And a Few Strategies to Avoid…

Don’t teach your kids catchy rhymes like “when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking.” This is not always true and can just cause confusion down the road.
Steer clear of calling these spelling RULES. A better term is spelling PATTERNS, as there are many exceptions to the “rules.”
Avoid discouraging young learners by using positive language when teaching English spelling. Refrain from presenting them with tongue twisters that may confuse them, and avoid saying things like “English makes no sense sometimes!” Instead, create a positive and encouraging learning environment that helps children feel capable of being successful.

As teachers, it's our responsibility to ensure that our students have a solid foundation in phonics and phonetics, including the study of diphthong vowel teams. By teaching students the proper pronunciation and usage of diphthong vowel teams, we can help them become more confident and effective communicators in the English language. For more resources on teaching diphthong vowel teams, click here.