Vowel Teams

    A vowel team syllable consists of 2, 3, or 4 letters that team up to make a unique sound.  Notice that the definition says letters not just vowels.  That is because a vowel team is much more than just the two letter teams we think of most often. (ea, ai, oa, ue, oe, ie, ou) This syllable type also includes  two letter teams such as ow, aw, ew and oy.  Other examples include igh and ough.  As you can see the list is rather long and I haven't even listed them all yet!
    Because the list of vowel teams is long, plan to set aside ample time to cover this syllable type.  It is best to directly teach each example.  Some teams such as ai and ay can be taught together to help clarify the orthographic rule of using ay at the end of a syllable and ai at the beginning or in the middle of a syllable. In any case, depending on how many teams you introduce in a week (usually around 2), you may need to plan a thorough study of teams for a quarter.
    As I suggested with the other syllable types, it is helpful to tie a gesture to each type.  The gesture I use is holding up the pointer and middle finger together.

Remember, the first step in teaching a team is to provide the definition and give multiple visual examples.  Students need to be able to quickly and accurately identify a team to be able to read a team.
    This is the time when we blow the "walking/talking" rule out of the water.  Although we like to say that "when two vowels go walking the first does the talking and the second is silent," that rule is true less than 50% of the time.  For example the team ea may make the long e (seat) sound but it also makes the long a sound (bear) and the short e sound (health). For that reason, let's spend less time over teaching that rule and instead teaching kids that some teams allow us to flex the vowel sound and some teams make just one sound.