Teach vowels as more than a list and they become the keys to unlocking spelling, reading and meaning.
Do you know what vowels are?
Most people, when asked, would say a, e, i, o, u – and some clever folks might add sometimes y. That’s great. You can identify which letters are vowels. But what are vowels? Why are those letters singled out, and why are they important? Have you ever been taught that, or has your child?
We teach kids vowels and consonants and expect them to remember which letters are which. But usually, we give no context as to why they need to know that information, or why it’s useful. For some kids, that’s fine, they can accept it and memorise the information. For others, particularly neurodivergent kids, it feels like random facts floating in space. Understanding the context can be really helpful.
So let’s start at the beginning. The word vowel comes from Latin and means ‘voiced sounds’ or ‘speech’. The word consonant is also from Latin and means ‘sounds together’ because at the time, they believed consonants needed to go with a vowel. These historical links give us a clue to the underlying meaning of what a vowel really is.
Here at Toucan, we’re very lucky to have a brilliant Speech and Language Therapist who helped to explain these letters. Vowel sounds are ‘raw sounds’. The air comes straight up from your lungs, over your vocal cords and out of your mouth without modification from your tongue, teeth, or lips (these are your articulators). Imagine sitting in the dentist’s chair and saying ahhh. Have a try. You can make those sounds just by changing how open your mouth is.
Consonant sounds require your articulators – your teeth, tongue, or lips – to make the sound. We had a fantastic lesson at Toucan with the kids all trying this out. So, there we have it: vowels are letter sounds we can make without the use of our teeth. But why is it so important that we know that?
Syllables and Stress
It all has to do with syllables. Syllables are the rhythm or the beat of our spoken language. English is what’s called a stress-timed language. That means the rhythm and cadence of our speech is important for understanding, reading and spelling. We alter the timing, volume and even the pitch of syllables when we speak to convey meaning.
Think about how you say the word photograph versus the way you say photography. Hear the difference? We place the stress in different places, but the spelling pattern remains constant. This creates problems for children taught to spell purely by listening for sounds. Photograph sounds different to photography. The second <o> in photograph can become shortened in speech and sound more like an <a> or a <u>, leading to spellings such as fotugraph or fotagraf. The first <o> in photography can be shortened so that it’s barely heard, which could suggest futography.
Schwa – our “hidden” vowel
This changing and shortening of vowel sounds is called a schwa. Although schwa is the most common vowel sound in English, most people have never heard of it. It occurs when we truncate a vowel in a word, such as:
● the <o> in button
● the <a> in sofa
● the <a> in banana
● the <ou> in famous
Why vowels matter
Most words of English origin include a vowel sound (not always a vowel letter, but a sound).
We need to be able to spot vowel letters while they are at work in our language. We need those sounds in our speech, otherwise our ideas would be an incomprehensible string of sounds with no beat or rhythm.
We also need to spot them when we are reading, to decode words and feel their rhythm. And when spelling, knowing which letters are operating as vowels helps us translate spoken language into written words. Understanding the link between meaning and spelling is important too. Pronunciation may shift, but meaning remains constant. This can explain why spelling sometimes looks different from how words sound.
Bringing it together
When we teach children vowels by rote, without explaining why they are such a helpful tool for understanding how language is bolted together, we fail to give them the best means to remember them.
We also miss the chance to show them that English may seem arbitrary and confusing, but it is in fact a system with logic and structure. Like any set of mechanics, once you know how the parts connect, the whole thing makes sense. Phonics is useful, but on its own it can’t explain why English works the way it does. The real power comes when children see the structure of language – how words are built, and how history shapes spelling.
Morphology and etymology bring words to life. They turn English from a maze of rules and exceptions into a system with logic, story and meaning. And that’s when it all starts to make sense.
