Understanding Vowel Team Syllables: Phonics Rules for Teachers Episode 20

The vowel team syllable can seem complex. There are many vowel teams in the English language, so how can we teach vowel teams to our students? Let's look at what a vowel team is generally and how to introduce this syllable type in your classroom.

With 10 years of classroom experience, former teacher Martha Moore hosts the Phonics Rules for Teachers Podcast. Drawing from her personal journey, she shares insights on transitioning from traditional teaching methods to a phonics-centered approach and the impact it has on students' reading and writing.

Each week , Martha shares a simple phonics rule, strategy, or background information and how you can teach it in your classroom.

You can find the How the Heck to Teach 'Em supplementary resource to go along with this series here: https://www.myprimaryparadise.com/shop/phonics-rules-resources/

Transcript

Teaching vowel teams can seem a little bit complex and maybe a lot overwhelming. Today, we're going to take the mystery out of it and take a look at the vowel team syllable in general and how you can teach it to your students.

Welcome to episode 20 of *Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them*. I'm Martha, and today we're going to take a look at the vowel team syllable and how you can teach this concept to your students.

First, let's start off with what is a vowel team. A vowel team is when we have two or more letters working together to spell a vowel sound in a word. Vowel teams can represent long vowel sounds, short vowel sounds, and other vowel sounds. They can often spell more than one vowel sound. For example, "ow" can spell /ow/ and also /o/. Vowel teams typically contain letters that we think of as vowel letters, such as "a," "e," "i," "o," "u," and "y," but can also include other letters as well. For example, we often see the letter "w" as part of a vowel team. Sometimes letters that typically spell consonant sounds are also found in vowel teams, for example, the vowel team "igh" or the vowel team "al." Most of the time, vowel teams contain two letters, but in some cases, they can contain up to three or even four letters. For example, "igh" and "ough." There is some discussion if those extra letters are considered part of the vowel team or if they are silent letters, but for my purposes, I'm just going to include them as part of the vowel team since it is a spelling pattern that we see grouped together.

There are over 20 vowel team spellings in the English language. Multiple vowel teams can also spell multiple sounds as well. Some examples of vowel teams are "ai," "ee," "igh," "ou," "aw," "ew," and, like I said, there are over 20 of them. You might be wondering, in what order should we teach vowel teams?

When teaching vowel teams, it's important to follow the principle that I have shared since the beginning of *Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them*, which is this: We always want to start with the more common and more simple spelling patterns and move towards the less common and more complex spelling patterns. While different programs follow different scope and sequences in order to teach the different vowel teams, the most important thing is that you teach them in a consistent order that makes sense and is logical.

Personally, I like to begin by teaching the common long vowel teams first since my students are already familiar with the idea of long vowels from both open syllables and silent syllables. Once students are comfortable with those long vowel teams, then you can move on to the most common other vowels or diphthong teams. I then like to move on to r-controlled spelling patterns, and then once students have a strong understanding of those, you can continue on to the more complex and less common vowel teams. Again, that's my personal preference, and if you are following a scope and sequence, I recommend following the scope and sequence that your school is using so that your students will be ready for the next grade level and the next teacher and there won't be gaps in their knowledge.

Here is an example of the order that you can teach vowel teams. I've also shared this in my "How the Heck to Teach" resource, which you can find below. The thing that matters most is that we start again with more common and move to less common. We might begin with "ee" and move on to "ai," "ay," "ea," "oa," "ow," "ie." As I said, the order that I like to teach them is to start with the most common long vowel spelling patterns, the most common diphthong spelling patterns, and then I will save the more complex and less common ones for later on.

Now, you might be wondering, okay, now I understand that we move from more common and less complex to less common and more complex, but how do we actually teach this to our students? Vowel teams are such common spelling patterns, and they open up a whole new world of words that your students can both read and write. The thing that is really tricky about vowel teams is that there are many different vowel teams that spell many different sounds. This is why it's best to just focus on each vowel team one at a time. Teach the spelling pattern, practice working with that word until students are comfortable, and then you can move on to the next vowel team spelling pattern.

Here's how you can introduce the vowel team syllable to your students. First, start by reviewing all of the different syllable types that you have learned so far. Before you introduce vowel teams, your students should understand closed syllables, open syllables, and silent syllables. Sometimes curriculums teach the r-controlled syllable before vowel teams, and again, that is just preference. There's no right way or wrong way.

If you've already taught consonant digraphs, your students already know that letters can work together to spell a sound. You can let them know that now they're going to learn a new syllable type where two or maybe more letters work together to spell a single sound. This time, instead of spelling consonant sounds, they're going to be spelling vowel sounds. You can start by writing some words with consonant digraphs on the board, for example, "wish" and "chat," and then ask students which letters in these words are working together to make one sound. They should point out the digraphs "sh" and "ch." Now, explain to them that today they're going to learn about a new syllable type that has letters working together to make a sound, but instead of making a consonant sound, these letters will be working together to make a vowel sound.

Write a word with whatever vowel team you are focusing on first on the board. I'm going to use the vowel team "ee" as an example, and I like to start with this one for a few reasons. One, the fact that it is two "e"s makes it easy for students to realize and to understand that that is going to spell a long "e" sound, and there are also many common words that students could use with this spelling pattern. So, for example, you could write the word "peek" on the board. Point out the two "e"s in the word and explain to your students that the two "e"s are working together to spell the long "e" sound in this word.

From there, I like to teach my students the hand motions that I use for vowel teams. I have them link two fingers together like a chain and they can say "vowel team." It is helpful to explain that vowel teams are often made up of two letters, but they can also be made up of three or four in some cases. However, since at this time you're going to be focusing on two-letter vowel teams, they don't need to worry about that just yet. And from there, as I say every time, you just practice, practice, practice. Have students see if they can brainstorm more words with that spelling pattern. You can have them take some time to map some words, add this spelling pattern to your daily sound drill, and of course, complete some targeted journal entries, work with decodable texts, and have your students really take some time to practice with this specific vowel team. Once they have a solid understanding of this vowel team, you can then move on to the next vowel team and teach them what sound that team spells.

As with any new spelling pattern, the key is to have your students practice in context, both reading and writing. As they start to realize that vowel teams work together to spell a sound and all they have to do is learn what vowel teams spell which sound and when, it doesn't feel quite as complicated as it might have felt in the beginning.

And there you have it. That's how you can introduce vowel teams to your students. In the coming episodes, I'm going to take a look at the vowel teams for all of the long vowel spelling patterns. Because vowel teams can feel quite complicated, I'm going to break down vowel teams and explain how and when we use them so that you are confident when you're teaching those vowel teams to your students.

So, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode of *Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them*. See you next time!

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