Tutoring Blog Post
When Two Vowels Go Walking
It is more than a little helpful to have a handy set of flash cards ready to prompt younger learners and give them reading cues. When learning about “vowel pairs”, for example, cue cards like these are colourful and attractive:
As the time-honoured reading prompt goes: “When two vowels go walking, the first does the talking”. Then, feeling smug with your handy flash cards, you help the child out with the picture provided: “oa” makes “coat”?
To my surprise, the most effective set of flash cards that I have used with my Gr. 1 student is one that she created herself. When I uttered the phrase “when two vowels go walking” she immediately drew some minuscule legs on a couple of little vowels:
Note that the first attempt had a minor error: the order of the vowels. I urged her to reconsider: the first does the talking. She re-arranged accordingly and proceeded to create different vowel pairs “meeting” each other. The following results were stupendous:
The student rapidly became familiar with which vowels formed which pairs. The truth is, the effectiveness of these homemade flash cards should not have come as a surprise to me. Involving the child in the learning process is essential to developing their ability to retain the concepts and apply them.
Be The First To Know
Sign Up For Little House News
Ready to get started?
We Help Students Achieve Their Goals
Little House Tutoring has helped students achieve their goals for over 15 years. Our tutoring programs are tailored for each child and for their individual needs and learning style.

Programs
Tutoring Programs
Multi-sensory Typing
Camps
Little House Tutoring
Blog & News
Tutors
About
Sign Up
Contact
Privacy Policy
Contact Us
604-266-1023
contact@littlehousetutoring.com
4895 Mackenzie Street
Vancouver, BC
V6L 2R7
© Little House Tutoring Inc. | All rights reserved.