· A diphthong is a single-vowel phoneme, represented by two letters, resembling a glide from one sound to another. Ex. Oil, house.
· A vowel digraph is a two-letter grapheme that represents one phoneme. Ex. Food, School, Through, Hook.
· Vowel pairs are when a word has 2 vowel graphemes. One vowel presents the long sound, while the other vowel is silent.
After reading this portion of the Phonics book, I realized how much Phonics is almost a language of itself. After rereading all of the Phonics rules, I am beginning to realize why we do not use Phonics as the main basis for our reading instruction; kids would get too confused! All of these vowel rules will be handy to know when I start teaching because it will help me understand how to help student’s read words with uncommon vowel rules. With these uncommon vowel rules, I believe the best way to teach these words would be through “writing until it looks right”.
Absolutely, kids would be confused if we taught phonics in isolation! It has no meaning that way...it must always be connected to real reading and writing experiences so the connections are made explicit for them. "Does it look right?" is an AWESOME strategy for both writing AND reading! Yea for you!
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