Vowel Teams Teaching Resources

Explore vowel teams worksheets and vowel digraphs games, activities and more — all created by teachers for teachers like you!

Aligned with both the TEKS ELAR and Common Core ELA curriculums, the resources in this collection were designed with your lesson plans — and your students — in mind. Best of all, each digital and printable resource has undergone a thorough review by the expert teachers on the Teach Starter team to ensure it's classroom-ready.

New to teaching this section of the curriculum? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a vowel teams definition you can use with your students.

What Is a Vowel Team? A Kid-Friendly Definition

Introducing vowel teams to your class for the first time? Here's a simple definition to explain their meaning.

Vowel teams are groups of two or more vowels that work together to make a specific sound. These vowels work just like a sports team or a team of superheroes, joining forces to create new sounds.

You may also hear these called vowel digraphs.

Vowel Digraphs vs. Vowel Diphthongs

If a vowel team is the same thing as a vowel digraph, does that mean it's the same as a vowel diphthong too?

The short answer is not necessarily!

The longer answer? Digraphs and diphthongs don't just have the "di" prefix in common. They're also both names for combinations of vowels found in words.

In fact, a diphthong is a type of digraph!

But these two building blocks of the English language have some key differences that are worth visiting before you dive into teaching vowel teams!

Here are their key differences.

Vowel Digraphs

When two vowels that are side-by-side in a word work together to represent a single, specific sound or phoneme, it's called a "vowel digraph" or a "vowel team."

When it comes to vowel teams or digraphs:

Both vowels are pronounced, but they create a single, unified sound.
They often represent long vowel sounds, short vowel sounds or other specific vowel sounds.

Examples:

"ai" in "rain" (pronounced as a long "a" sound)
"oa" in "boat" (pronounced as a long "o" sound)

Vowel Diphthongs

Vowel diphthongs are pairs of adjacent vowels combine to produce what's called a glide or a blending of two distinct vowel sounds within a single syllable.

When it comes to vowel diphthongs:

The pronunciation starts with the sound of the first vowel and glides into the sound of the second vowel without a clear break between them.
They often create a unique sound that's different from the individual vowel sounds.

Examples:

"oi" in "coin" (pronounced as a blend of "o" and "i," not as separate sounds)
"ou" in "cloud" (pronounced as a blend of "a" and "u," not as separate sounds)

Common Vowel Teams to Teach Your Students

We have already touched on some of vowel digraphs or teams, but if you need a handy list of examples to share with your students, we've got you covered! Here are some of the more common vowel teams we teach our students, plus some examples of words with each team!

ai

This vowel team makes the long "a" sound.
Examples include rain, train, pain, sail and mail

ea

This vowel team can represent different sounds — including the long "e" and short "e" sounds — depending on the word.
Examples with the long "e" sound include eat, sea, team and read.
Examples with the short "e" sound include bread, head, and thread.

ee

The "ee" vowel team produces the long "e" sound.
Examples: tree, bee, see, meet

ie

This vowel digraph can make the long "i" sound.
Examples of the "ie" team include pie, tie and lie.

oa

The "oa" vowel digraph typically makes the long "o" sound.
Examples in this vowel team include boat, toast and road.

oi

The "oi" vowel team creates the "oy" sound.
Examples include coin and voice.

The vowel team "oi" is commonly found in words like noise and poise.

ue

This vowel team often makes the long "u" sound.
Examples include blue and clue.

oo

The "oo" vowel team can produce two different but distinct sounds — the long "u" sound and the short "oo" sound.
Examples with the long "u" sound include moon, soon and spoon.
Examples with the short "oo" sound include book, look and cook.