Vowel Team Series: Vowel Team Series, Book 5: /ū/ & /o͞o/ – ue

Zahra Nawaz

Jan 2022 · Vowel Team Series Issue #5 · Nurturing Dyslexics

About this ebook

Do you ever wonder how to teach students when to use the various spelling patterns that can be used to spell the sounds /ū/ (u, u-e, ue, ew, eu) & /o͞o/ (u, u-e, ue, ew, oo, ou, ui)? Do your students have trouble differentiating which words spell the /ū/ & /o͞o/ sounds using the spellings "ue" and "ew", both of which can make the same sounds? "ue" says /ū/ in avenue and /oo/ in glue; "ew" also says /ū/ in dew and /o͞o/ in screw.

With it's two different fun stories, this book helps students who struggle with remembering the confusing spellings of words that use the spelling pattern of "ue".

This book features two stories, one for each of the sounds made by the grapheme "ue". The first title, "A Rescue at Green Avenue", is a fast-moving story about a girl called Jen whose house gets broken into by a gang of robbers.

A painting meant for a fundraiser and her beloved pet dog Max get stolen in the robbery. Jen follows the clues left by the unsuspecting robbers to catch them red-handed. This story covers 17 focus words that are spelled with the grapheme "ue", making the /ū/ sound. 

The second title, "A Party for the True Hero", is a follow-up story where the city mayor throws a party for Jen, who helped catch the robbers linked to a criminal gang. This story covers 12 focus words that are spelled with the grapheme "ue", making the /o͞o/ sound.

A Rescue at Green Avenue and A Party for the True Hero is a decodable resource focussing on 17 common words that use the "ue" spelling pattern to spell /ū/ and 12 common words that use the "ue" spelling pattern to spell /o͞o/. It is the fifth book in the Vowel Team Series.

The books in the vowel team series have been developed to help students with orthographic mapping of focus words. Every book in this Vowel Team Series will focus on one or two related vowel teams and include multiple focus words spelled with the same spelling pattern that students of school age will encounter during reading and spelling.

Students with learning difficulties who struggle to differentiate the multiple spelling patterns of long vowel sounds will benefit from using this decodable book. The intention is for children to associate the focus words with the story and subsequently become fluent in encoding and decoding those words.

The books come with educator resources that can be used in conjunction with this book to reinforce the spelling patterns covered in each book.