Have you ever had a student who knew a-e-i-o-u and sometimes y, but couldn’t remember what they were called? When one of my student kept referring to them as “verbs”, I decided it was time to give him a visual reminder to help him remember what they were really called.
We started out by talking about how owls were pretty smart birds. I then showed him a picture of an owl with a “V” in front of it. I asked him to tell me what kind of bird it was (“owl”), then to say the “V” in front of “owl”. Yes, “v-owls” for “vowels”. And the V helps students associate the letter v (such as in vccv) with the word vowel.
I put together a graphic that can be printed on a 4×6 card that has the “v-owl” at the top, and little “v-owls” at the bottom labeled with a, e, i, o and u (here’s a link to the v-owl free download.)
Help students remember vowels with v-owls.
He hasn’t had any trouble since remembering vowels!