2nd Grade reading skills

My goose is on the loose.

Vowel lessons are the job of 2nd Grade. The ABCs have two kinds of letters: consonants which keep a constant sound and vowels whose sounds are variable.

The vowels are: a, e, i, o, u, and y. 
Each vowel has both a short sound and a long sound. 

Short Rule: when a word has only one vowel, that vowel will say its short sound: bat, bet, bit, bot, but, myth (short y sounds the same as short i. ) 

Long Rule: when two vowels are side-by-side or have only one consonant in between, the 1st vowel says its long sound: bait, beat, bite, boat, brute, byte (long y sounds the same as long i). The 2nd vowel in the pattern will usually be short or silent.

In addition to short and long vowels, 2nd Grade also targets the several vowel team patterns: 

au, aw (saw, caught)     and oi, oy (noise, toy)       and ou (ouch, pouch)      and oo (zoo, goose, choose  or book, cook, look). 

Important warning: Vowel work requires your child to really focus and connect with tiny details. The chance to get this kind of deep focus is made much easier for the "sight word smart child."    Parents have no idea until it is too late. 

My blog offers 150 free lessons but for quick help with sight words and vowel lessons, I use eBay as my website. Search Instant Reading Help Vowels or Instant Reading Help plus your child's grade level. I include my contact information, you can call or write with questions.

I am retired and now teach struggling readers. Please be aware, teachers believe children can catch up from a slow start but NIH research shows only 6 out of 50 kids ever catch up. 

Write me with questions. Mary Maisner