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An integral step in making children learn to read is to introduce them to vowel patterns. Knowing English vowel patterns for children ensures that they become better readers. Apart from teaching short vowel and long vowel sounds, you also need to teach them long vowel spelling patterns. YouTube videos are great for learning vowel patterns online. You can also enroll your kids in professional classes to learn vowel patterns. Click here to BOOK a FREE Class with our Language Expert!
Benefits of English Vowel Patterns for Children
All parents want their kids to become good at reading from a tender age. For that, parents need to introduce kids to different rules and techniques in the English language. Parents often wonder if it is mandatory to teach kids various vowel patterns in English. The benefits of teaching vowel patterns are as follows:
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Learn how to spell words: The best part about understanding vowel patterns is that kids learn how to spell words. Teaching vowel patterns means making kids accustomed to commonly used vowel groups in the English language. Even though there are several uncommon vowel patterns in English, knowing the common ones makes it easier to guess the right spellings. In fact, understanding the vowel patterns is better than memorizing the spellings.
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Learn the rules of the English language: Understanding vowel patterns is necessary to become familiar with the English language rules. Knowing the rules gives kids an idea about predictable spelling patterns in the English language. If students see that word is not following the predictable rules of the language, they can always go back and check if they are right. But while teaching the English language rules, it is also necessary to reveal the fact that generalizations are not accepted all the time. You can also help students understand how some spellings are not following predicted vowel patterns or other rules.
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Become fluent readers: A major benefit of introducing common vowel patterns to kids is becoming better at reading. It becomes less tricky for kids to understand how a particular word is pronounced, and they don't need too much time guessing the word. It can allow young kids to read at a steady pace. It also ensures that kids understand what they are reading. The ease of becoming fluent readers can be noticed in the way kids grasp the meaning of new words.
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Tips to Teach English Vowel Patterns for Children
Vowel patterns for kids are often an area of struggle. Students' identification of vowel pattern skills should be introduced at a tender age. But vowel pattern identification is a skill that takes a long time to master. Some tips for teaching vowel patterns list for students are as follows:
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Don't teach all the vowel patterns together: The first thing to remember while teaching vowel patterns to kids is not to rush. Since kids take time to understand the concept of vowel patterns, you need to give them enough time to learn. After introducing one vowel pattern, allow students to solidify that learning. When they are introduced to more than one vowel team at a time, they will get confused. In between the vowel pattern lessons, you should teach your kids other things like spelling rules, r controlled vowels, and suffixes.
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Avoid generalizations: Teachers often introduce them to certain general rules while teaching vowel patterns. For instance, kids are usually made to understand that the first one gets pronounced when two vowels are placed together. While this rule is applicable in many situations, it is not universal. Some common examples include ow in the plow, i.e., in thief, ea in steak, and ou in the shout. Introducing your kids to generalizations that aren't universal makes it confusing for them.
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Start with the easy ones: No particular order exists for teaching English vowel patterns to children. However, it is always prudent to begin with the easy vowel patterns. You can start with vowel patterns with a distinct generalization of spellings. Those vowel patterns are also quite common in the English language. For instance, you can start with the vowel patterns ai and ay.
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Teach similar vowel patterns together: While teaching the vowel patterns chart for kids, you should also try teaching the similar ones together. But before that, you need to understand whether the vowel patterns are worth being taught back to back. For instance, ea and ee look like two vowel patterns that should be introduced one after the other. But they are not so similar, and you should space them out by weaving some other lessons in between. The best way to space out certain vowel patterns is to introduce spelling generalizations in the middle.
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Save the less common vowel teams for later: You will be tempted to teach all the vowel groups one after the other while teaching vowel patterns to your kids. But some vowel patterns should be saved for later and taught only when your little ones grow a little older. For instance, save vowel patterns like oe and ey for later. The less common vowel teams in the English language include oi, oy, ou, aw, and au. Sometimes the best time to introduce the less common vowel teams is when your kids go up to the next grade. The patterns with less common pronunciations are also included among the less common vowel patterns.
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Introduce the difference between vowel diphthongs and vowel digraphs: Kids often struggle with understanding the definition of diphthongs and digraphs. In fact, even adults struggle with understanding the difference between the two. It is prudent to introduce kids to the differences while teaching vowel patterns instead of vowel sounds. Introduce diphthongs and digraphs as vowel teams and describe their sounds as short sounds and long sounds. For instance, oi is pronounced as /oy/ like in boiling. You need to teach kids that vowel patterns can have two, three, and even four letters. Therefore, the term digraph is not always the right way of pronouncing a word.
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Brush up their knowledge of vowels and consonants: Before proceeding with vowel patterns for kids, you need to ensure that they have sound knowledge about vowels and consonants. In the English language, there are only five vowels. The rest of the letters are considered consonants. However, you need to teach kids that writing and reading rules are sometimes different. For instance, w and y belong to the team of vowels for the purpose of reading and writing. Therefore, some popular vowel patterns with w and y include aw, ew, ay and ey.
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Teach students about spelling choices: You need to be transparent with kids that sometimes spelling choices can be tricky. You need to tell students that, at times, they need to try using different pronunciations with the vowel patterns to understand which is correct. The same goes for spelling, as kids will often have to change the vowel patterns and find out which is the correct spelling. But you should encourage your kids to understand the relative frequency to make the right choice. You can help your kids develop a system that makes detecting the correct spelling option easier.
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Introduce the concept of homophones: While teaching vowel patterns, it is necessary to introduce the concept of homophones. These are pairs of words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings. Students need to understand how two vowel patterns can have the same sound. Sometimes a similar sound is caused by a vowel pattern in one word and a consonant pattern in another. It helps in making students understand the importance of meaning rather than memorization. You can also encourage students to spot homophone pairs in a reading text to become more understanding of the spelling differences.
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Foster abundant practice of vowel patterns: You need to make students practice vowel patterns to become good with spelling. Using some keywords or mnemonics can help students remember multiple spelling options. Sometimes it's beneficial if students make their own silly image or sentence to remember the correct vowel pattern in spelling. Motivate the kids to view vowel patterns as a single unit. You can engage them in creative activities like coloring the vowels to make them memorize common vowel patterns. You can also create a common vowel pattern chart for kids and hang them in a place where they will get to see it every day.
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Activities to Teach Long Vowel Patterns
While getting accustomed to short vowel patterns is easier for kids, they often struggle with long vowel patterns. Here are some activities to help them understand those better:
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Word sorting: Write one word on one index card and give your kid a set of 10-20. You can also note down all the words in one sheet and give them to your kids. Make your kid sort out the words depending on the long vowel patterns in words. You can encourage your kids to place words with the same long vowel patterns in the same stack. If you are giving one sheet of paper to your kids, you can ask them to put words with similar long vowel sounds on one sheet. For instance, words with the long vowel patterns ee should be placed in a sheet, and the words with the long vowel pattern ey should be placed into another.
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Matching words: This activity is for kids who are recently being introduced to long vowel patterns. You can have pictures of different objects in one stack, and in another stack, you need to keep the names of each image. Make your child match each object with their name. You should also ask your kids to pronounce the words while matching to check if they can focus on long vowel sounds.
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Choose the correct spelling: This activity is excellent to ensure that your kids develop a sound knowledge of vowel patterns. Whether it's long or short vowel patterns for kids, you can try this activity to make your kids better at identifying them. You will have to write multiple spellings of a particular object and determine if your kid can guess the right one. Ask them to round the correct spelling of the word. Encourage your kids to use colorful pens to make the activity more fun. After identifying the correct spelling, ask them to pronounce the words and see if they have grasped how different vowel patterns are pronounced.
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Draw and match: It is a fun and engaging activity to teach vowel patterns to kids. You should give a few index cards to students with one word written on each of them. Make your kid pronounce the word and make an illustration. You can also note down all the words on one sheet of paper. Get your kids to draw an image of each term. After that, encourage them to cut each word and glue it to the appropriate illustration. The game will let you understand if kids understand both pronunciation and meaning of words with vowel patterns.
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Guess the word: Say the beginning of any term with long vowel patterns and see if your kids can identify it. You can also reveal the vowel pattern and one or two other letters of the word and see if your kid can guess the right word. The game can also be played in reverse. You can reveal all the letters of the word except for the vowel pattern. Give some options for vowel patterns for kids and see if they are able to complete the term. If you want to increase the challenge in this activity, do not give your kids any options for vowel patterns. It will help you understand if your kid has become familiar with the common vowel patterns in the English language.
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Jumble words: It is one of the best activities to understand if your kid has become familiar with long vowel patterns. But this game is better for older children who have developed a good knowledge of words and spellings. In this game, you need to provide jumbled-up words to your kids. Let them unjumble the terms by arranging the letters in the correct order. Once kids become familiar with vowel patterns, they will not need too much time to unjumble the words. In fact, you can try this game for short vowel patterns too.
FAQs
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What are some examples of vowel patterns au aw augh al?
The vowel pattern au is visible in words like caught and autumn. The vowel pattern aw, is visible in saw, strawberry, and dawn. The vowel pattern augh is visible in words like laugh taught, and naughty. The vowel pattern al is found in words like call, fall, and tall.
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What are some examples of vowel patterns ei eigh?
The vowel pattern ei is visible in words like beige and weird. The vowel pattern eigh is visible in words like eight, height, and weight.
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What are some examples of vowel patterns au augh ou ough?
The vowel patterns au and augh are noticed in words like launch and laugh. Words like couple and cough have the vowel patterns ou and ough.
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What are some examples of vowel patterns o oa ow?
The vowel pattern is noticed in words like toad and throat. On the other hand, the vowel pattern "ow" is seen in words like snow and cow.
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How to teach the best vowel patterns and superlatives to students?
To teach English vowel patterns and superlatives to kids, you need to begin with the easy ones. For instance, you can start with the common vowel patterns like ai and ee.
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What are some common vowel patterns?
The most common vowel patterns in the English language include ai, ee, oa, igh, ea. Vowel patterns like ay, ie, ue, oo, and 'ew' are common English vowel pattern examples for kids.
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How many vowel patterns are there in the English language?
Since the English language has incorporated words from multiple languages, there are a variety of vowel patterns in the English language. Some vowel patterns in the English language include au, ei, ow, and oa.
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What are some common vowel patterns in one-syllable words?
Some vowel patterns in one-syllable words include "oo" like in the room. Another common example of vowel patterns in one-syllable words includes "oe" like toe.
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Where can you get vowel pattern worksheets for kids?
PlanetSpark provides you with various vowel pattern worksheets for kids during the course. Different fun and exciting activities are also included to help them learn easily.
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