How to Teach Vowel Sounds so Kids will Remember Infographic

Sarah Major, M.Ed. is passionate about working in harmony with a child's immaculate design to support their learning strengths. As a Title 1 Program Director and Designer, Sarah earned awards for creating her own multisensory educational resources that have now been sold in all 50 states and over 150 countries. By design, Sarah’s materials use visuals, hand motions, stories, and games to strengthen your child’s vowel sound discrimination. 

Why are Vowels important?

• Vowels are found in every syllable of every word. 
• They enable us to distinguish between words such as pant, pint, pent, punt or slip, slap, slop.
• If a child doesn’t understand vowel sounds, they will struggle with reading.

Why do kids struggle with vowels?

• Five of the 26 alphabet letters are vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. 
• Unlike consonants, each of the vowel letters has more than one type of sound or can even be silent with no sound at all.

Why use visuals to teach vowels?

• A visual learner cannot rely on memory to recall the sound difference between E and I, or O and U. 
• A visual with a related hand motion is critical. The child will see the symbol and their brain will draw on the image and motion.

Why incorporate hand motions into learning vowels?

• Children associate body motion with the shape of the letter and the sound they hear themselves saying.
• Over time, they will no longer need to make the hand motion, the sounds will become automatic.