Tuesday, February 12, 2008

When Two Vowels Go Walking...

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The Helpful Homemaker is hosting Teaching Tips Tuesday. It sounds like such a great idea that I wish I would have thought of it! Go on over to check it out and link up if you have a teaching tip.

Mine is a simple one. When I am teaching one of my children to read, I tell them the rhyme,

"When 2 vowels go walking, the first one does the talking."
Well, actually I say, "walkin'" and "talkin'" because we are klassy, but that's beside the point.

The rule means that when you see 2 vowels side by side, the first one says its name. For instance, look at the word r-e-a-d. The first vowel is "e" and it says its name. The "a" is silent.

B-o-a-t follows the same rule. The first vowel, "o", says its name. The second vowel is silent. Lots of words follow this rule, and of course, there are a few exceptions, but it generally holds true. The little rhyme makes it easy to remember, too.

7 comments:

Daisy said...

We add just a bit to that by ending with....

...and the second one goes to sleep!

LOL! Great tip.

Donna(mom24boyz) said...

Thanks so much for joining in!--
that is a great tip! I will be teaching my 3rd son to read soon --and I am new to homeschooling so this will come in handy!

Anonymous said...

We say the same little rhyme, but at the end we add "and he always wants to talk about himself!!" (meaning the first vowel says his own name).

:)
~Leah in Alaska~
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lifelongalaskan/

Nikki said...

I love this little rhyme. You know what irritates the heck out of me? My kids enjoy playing the reading games on StarFall.com. And they have this very rhyme in it. It used to be correct. But now for some unbeknownst to me reason it says, "When vowel twos go walking, the first one does the talking." What the heck?! Now my kids repeat it that way. urgh.

I'm going to check out those Teaching Tips. Thanks for the link!

Smockity Frocks said...

Nikki, That's just weird! My kids like that site, too, but I hadn't noticed that bizarre bit of bad grammar!

~Rhen @yestheyareallmine said...

That is such a great tip! Thanks for sharing. :)

Anonymous said...

We like starfall, too. Such cute little stories on there.

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