Videos are an excellent way to teach and practice the trickiest of phonics rules. I rounded up the best videos on vowel diphthongs so that you don’t have to!
Do your kids try to sound out words like “cow” or “mouse” but just can’t seem to find the right letters to spell them? Words with vowel diphthongs are some of the trickiest out there for new readers and can be challenging to teach.
These vowel digraphs can be hard for new readers and writers to grasp because they make a completely new sound. In addition to that, most of these new sounds can be spelled in more than one way. š³ #sotricky
I scoured YouTube to find videos that would help make the task of teaching and learning diphthongs a little bit easier.
The BEST vowel diphthongs videos
Learning Videos for the Classroom
While I personally believe these videos are appropriate for preschool, kindergarten and first grade classrooms, remember that there can often be inappropriate ads before and after YouTube videos. Also, I always recommend previewing the full video before showing it to your class.
If you plan to show YouTube videos in your classroom, I highly recommend that you read this blog post by Catherine, the Brown Bag Teacher. She shares three ways to eliminate YouTube video ads so that you can safely play these learning videos in your classroom.
There are two channels on YouTube that have videos to cover the most common of the different vowel diphthong pairings.
Alphablocks Teach Vowel Diphthongs
I love the way Alphablocks videos tell a story while teaching how the letters go together to make sounds. These videos are all less than 5 minutes and are extra engaging for kids. They are both informative and fun!
AU and AW
OU and OY
Word Magic: B-OO-K
Follow the above video with the first 4 minutes of this one to extend the story!
The first two minutes of this video show all the sounds that OO can make!
Kids vs. Phonics
These videos are very simple. The words are on the bottom and there is an animated picture above.
Each time a word is displayed the spelling pattern is shown in a different color so kids can easily identify it. It starts by showing one word, then two words that go together to make a phrase and finally tells a silly story using many of the words.
I like how the narrator speaks clearly with a little bit of expression. This is a great example for new readers!
OU
OI
OW
OY
The next few videos mix two diphthong spelling patterns that make the same sound. This is extra important as this idea can be so tricky for new readers and writers!
OI and OY
OU and OW
I love to use these videos along with diphthong sentences and diphthong reading passages to help students make connections to the specific diphthongs we have been learning in class. Focusing in on a single pattern and then mixing them all together is so helpful for my students!
How do you like to help your kids learn vowel diphthongs? Are there any favorite videos I missed? Let me know below!
