Vowel Teams Oo and Ew

Have your child say each word and point to where the sound falls, middle or end, before choosing a team. For ee and ea, keep a short list of the words they missed and sort them again the next day. Check with the answer key.

Write oo or ew to spell words like balloon and nephew, then fix sentence spellings. A vowel team is two letters that work together to make one sound. Oo and ew can both make the sound you hear in moon and new. Ew is often at the end of a word, but it can come in the middle too. The directions on the page read: Read the rule and the example. Then, do parts A, B and C. The page opens with a worked example, and the answer key shows every answer.

Yes, both. We made it for 3rd Grade spelling, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with vowel teams. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

A vowel team is two letters that work together to make one sound, like ai in rain or ee in tree. Many sounds have two teams, so spelling them takes practice.

Use ai in the middle of a word or syllable (rain, explain) and ay at the end (day, holiday). Oa and ow follow a similar pattern: oa in the middle (boat), ow at the end (snow).

Both say long e and both can come in the middle, so there is no position rule. Students learn which team each word uses by sorting words like season, between and teacher.

Yes. All four sheets have an answer key that shows every spelling, so a parent or teacher can check the work in a minute.

3rd graders spell long vowels and vowel teams (rain, team, boat), r-controlled vowels (star, fork, bird), common homophones, and words with endings, where the rules for dropping a silent e, doubling a consonant and changing y to i come in (CCSS L.3.2.E and L.3.2.F). Silent letters in words like knee and write round out the year.

Double the last consonant when a one-syllable word ends in one short vowel and one consonant: hop becomes hopping and sit becomes sitting. Words with two vowels or a final e do not double: rain becomes raining and hope becomes hoping. The adding endings pages practice all three rules.

Start with long vowels and vowel teams, since they are the most common patterns, then r-controlled vowels. Move to adding endings once those feel easy, and use the homophone and silent letter pages as review. Each subtopic on this page holds four sheets.