In teaching reading and writing, we want to be systematic and explicit. Unfortunately, for many of us, that means doing something we were never taught. Luckily, most teachers are excellent learners. Phonics has been new to me, and something I have spent a lot of time learning. Today, I am going to teach you what I have learned about the /ow/ sound.
The /ow/ sound is a digraph. That means two letters combine to form a totally new sound. We have two ways to spell the /ow/ sound.
OU: We use the letters “ou” to spell the /ow/ sound in the middle of syllables. Examples: proud, shout, mouth, and flour
OW: We use the letters “ow” to spell the /ow/ sound at the end of syllables or in the middle of syllables that rhyme with town or owl. Examples: flower, clown, cow, and towel (Crowd is an example of a word that doesn’t follow this pattern.)
There are so many options for activities to help your students orthographically map words with the /ow/ sound, but showing them the words and sounds is always the first step.
The magic of my second grade team comes from the consistent review we do with all of the words and sounds we learn during our phonics instruction. As many times as you can bring your students’ attention back to a sound they have learned, the stronger that sound will be mapped in their brains.
One of the things that takes the most time in planning our phonics lessons is finding good words to use. While making our most recent phonics activity around the /ow/ sound, I decided to put together a word list. I organized the word list based on word families. We don’t teach based on word families, but I have found them a great tool for organizing student thinking. While we are building lists of word family words, students don’t have to use mental capacity to sound out an entire word, they just have to try out different beginning sounds, such as going from “sound” to “pound.”
I am all about saving you time, so I am sharing that word list with you here. Best news? This phonics word list is totally free! Enjoy!
Want your own copy of this word list? Grab it here!
Want more ideas for more effective teaching and learning in your classroom? Check out these posts!
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