Search
Catchy rhymes can be a fun and easy way to remember some of those pesky phonics rules. Have you heard of this one?
When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.
It’s a cute rhyme that’s easily remembered, and most teachers simply take it for granted that it is true, especially if their phonics program includes the rule as fact. And for the sake of convenience, it would be wonderful if this rule were true—teaching reading and spelling would be much simpler. But this “rule” is actually false 60% of the time.
To test the rule, I took the 1,000 most common words and analyzed them by applying the rule to each one. I discovered that, contrary to the rule’s claim, only 43% of the words actually followed the rule, and a stunning 57% of the words did not! When I analyzed the top 2,000 words, the percentage shifted even further—only 36% of the words followed the rule, and 64% did not. So much for this oft-repeated phrase!
This is not to say that the rule is entirely invalid. There are many cases in which two vowels “go walking,” including ai, au, ea, ee, ei, ie, oa, eo, oi, oo, ou, and ui. And when a pair of vowels appears in a word, it is often the first vowel that “does that talking,” as represented in words like green, sea, hair, coat, clean, rain, and peach.
However—and this is the important part—these same vowel teams also exist in many words that don’t follow the “when two vowels go walking” rule, including good, about, earth, bear, noise, author, and friend.
Instead of relying on the incorrect guidance of this (fake) rule, teach your students the sounds of the letter combinations (called phonograms). Your student will learn important and fundamental concepts, such as ai says /ā/, au says /aw/, oa says /ō/, and oi says /oy/. This knowledge will give your students some real tools to work with—and there will be nothing to unlearn later!
Were you ever taught that “when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking?”
Shasta
says:I was not taught “When two vowels go walking…” but “When the vowels go walking…”
Robin
says: Customer ServiceShasta,
Yes, there are multiple twists on this unreliable rule.
Jodi
says:I agree that this rule doesn’t work a lot of the time, but we also can’t just teach that ai says /ā/ as a ‘rule’ either…what about said, curtain, certain, captain among many others. I simply teach my kids that the ‘rules’ we learn don’t apply to 100% of all word with the same graphemes/digraphs/vowel teams etc, and that some words we just have to learn, but we also look at the different ways certain letters/letter combinations can sound within examples.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceJodi,
All About Reading and All About Spelling focus only on rules that are highly reliable. Yes, every rule will have exceptions, but we only teach rules that hold true at least 95% of the time (most rules we teach are 97% or greater). We do teach some patterns or generalizations that fall below that threshold (we use the words “usually” or “often” when we do to make it clear these are less reliable), but still they all hold true well over half of the time. The “two vowels go walking” so-called rule doesn’t even make that threshold.
Phonograms are extremely reliable, but as you mention, they too have exceptions. Said is taught as a Rule Breaker and focus is drawn to the AI phonogram not saying what we expect it to say.
As for words like curtain, certain, and captain, there is something else entirely going on there. In those words, the second syllable (the one with the AI phonogram) is unaccented and any vowel or vowel team can say the muffled /uh/ or /ih/ schwa sound in an unaccented syllable. In fact, in these words, the second syllable can be so muffled that some of the consonants disappear too in many regional accents. Curtain becomes cur’n, certain cer’n, and captain cap’n with glottal stops instead of /t/. Since ALL vowels and vowel teams can take on this schwa sound, it is best for students to address the concept of muffled vowels and syllables directly. In addition, All About Reading Level 4 and All About Spelling Level 6 both have lessons specifically on AIN at the end of words. You may want to see our article on How to Teach Schwas.
Kim
says:I went to school in the fifties and sixties and never hear this rule. I got my MAE:ESL in 2019 and didn’t here it then either.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceKim,
I’m pleased to hear that the “Two Vowels Go Walking” rule is not being taught to educators any longer! However, it was taught to me when I was learning to read in the ’80s, and there were lots and lots of educational materials teaching this rule when I was teaching my first child to read in the early ’00s. It’s about time this very inaccurate and unreliable “rule” went out of fashion.
Rosalie
says:Where is my comment?
Robin
says: Customer ServiceRosalie,
I’m sorry you didn’t see your comment right away. Sometimes it takes a bit of time for the system to show new comments.
Suzanne
says:But I immediately thought of the word “said” and the long a phonogram rule above does not work. So many complications!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceSuzanne,
Well, the word “said” is a true rule-breaker. AI is not expected to say that sound. For me, words like soup and soil come up.
Jan Lynn Erie
says:Great
Julianah Ona Daropale
says:I think the rule is limited to kindergarten, because when you use the rule of when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking the children easily grasp the concept since the words sounded more like a rhyme. However it is also important to teach them the phonogam.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Julianah. However, many children become confused when a rule they were previous taught is then later shown to be not a rule. It is often best to simply teach phonograms only from the beginning. Children understand and master them easily.
Sapphire
says:This is like the “I before E except after C” and then you realise just how many words fall out of this concept as you grow. Learning the rhyme majorly made it difficult for me to remember what words fell outside of it. If not taught that, I probably wouldn’t have the trouble of constantly undoing what I was taught for so many years, I try to avoid the rhymes with my children, don’t want to cause any confusion.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceYes, great points, Sapphire.
All About Spelling actually teaches a modified I Before E rule that is highly reliable. We add, “If the sound is /ē/, it’s I before E except after C.” This eliminates all the long A, long I, and short E exceptions (like weigh, feisty, and foreign). Then All About Spelling teaches the 10 common exceptions in two easy to remember silly sentences.
Kim
says:What about seize and siege?
Robin
says: Customer ServiceKim,
Yes! As I mentioned, All About Spelling teaches the 10 common exceptions to the “If the sound is /ē/, it’s I before E except after C,” rule.
ramya
says:very useful tip
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Ramya!
Oletha
says:Learned this rule in the 8th grade In Catholic school, that was in the 60’s so I looked it up because I was pronouncing “Weis” as “Weese” using that rule. So glad I looked it up!❤️
Mashani
says:I am also teaching this method.. I am following jolly phonics training
Robin
says: Customer ServiceWonderful, Mashani!
Dorothy
says:I did but I also learned that there are exceptions to the rules
Higi
says:I believe it is a good tool for very early beginning spellers. Just be sure to say there ARE many exceptions.
Sophie
says:I had no idea this rule even existed :)
Glad to learn why it doesn’t work though.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceGlad to help you learn something, Sophie!
Maria G
says:This is so interesting! There’s so many grammar rules that I wasn’t taught well or aren’t the often, and I struggle with beginning to teach them to my kids!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceMaria,
That is where All About Reading and All About Spelling will be so useful for you with their “No Gaps” Approach to Reading and Spelling. Our programs teach only the reliable rules of English and are designed to be Easy to Teach with no prior experience or training.
Rosalie
says:In reading there are no rules. Just practice makes perfect! When a child opens a book it’s a beautiful adventure. And when you clog it up with all of the rules then it stops the possible and creates the impossible. That is the exact reason children give up on a single word. Trying to figure out what the ready rules are. How did Abraham Lincoln learn to read and write with absolutely nothing but a stick with some ash on it and a slat. Then when he was formally trained to read he already had the desire because of simple beautiful magic that comes into play when Our minds our hands and our eyes reach for the stars and reading writing and arithmetic comes alive. No power on earth can stop the imagination. Except a basket of rules set on. Child’s heart that will teach your not smart enough to figure it out. Words are like patterns they form in our minds and when practiced and practice makes perfect. So a child feels the small word turning into a bigger picture. Not a blank wall of confusion. After a child masters the simple task of reading then fir what reason I’m not sure, rules can be read and tests can be taken because a child is reading.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThank you for your thoughts, Rosalie.
However, extensive educational research going back for more than a century has found that there are many very reliable and helpful rules in English. Sadly, currently in the United States, more children struggle with reading than succeed with it (as measured by the NAEP 2022 report on reading proficiency). Our approach incorporates the findings of the National Reading Panel (2000) (Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.)
Irma A. Garcia
says:I found the rule “when two vowels go walking” on the internet, however it didn’t say anything about two vowels walking.
Thaadhi
says:Can I use “aa” to write a name. Ex: “Thaadhi “.
In my mother language we have separate letters for “Tha” & “Thaa ” sound.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThaadhi,
Yes, of course you can spell names however you like, especially if the names comes from another language!
Franzieka Emery
says:My name is spelt Franzieka how is it pronounced by English Grammer I’m 59 years old and have this name but no one can tell me how it’s pronounced. Because it was a miss spelling because mom was german. So they spelt it way it sounded when she said it. Someone help me with my name that’s not listed as a name. It’s a name mistake that’s original . Can I get a he real pronunciation.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceFranzieka,
Your name is pronounced as you want it to be pronounce. There is no right or wrong way. In English, names can and do break all the rules with spelling and pronunciation. If you are unsure how you want it pronounced, then go with the way your mother wanted it pronounced.
I will add, however, that in German, when two vowels are together, the first is silent and the second is long. Since your mother was German, she may have wanted it to be Fran – zee – ka.
Joan Amsler
says:I was taught when you have 2 vowels in a short word the first vowel says it’s name and the second one sleeps
Make ,take, wake
Robin
says: Customer ServiceInteresting, Joan. The words make, take, and wake are all silent e words. We have a great blog post on Silent E: Teaching Kids the Whole Truth that you may enjoy.
Mona
says:Thank you for sharing this. It will be a great help for my RTI group.
Crystal
says:I teach phonics rules while also pointing out at the same time there are outliers. I like the rule “when two vowels go walking” because it’s easy to remember. I teach it with ai, oa, ea, ay, ow, igh, and ue. At the same time I am teaching it, I made a big deal of adding the words “usually, but not always” to the end of the rhyme. I do that with ALL phonics rules I teach because all of them have exceptions. I give several examples of those exceptions. I explain why english has so many exceptions (because english comes from so many other languages that all have different rules). Then I teach dipthong vowels (oi, au, ou, etc) separately. I explain that those vowels are similar to digraphs, where instead of saying only one sound, or saying the sounds together, the sound changes altogether. It seems to work very well. My kids will be the first to say, “but not always” whenever they hear the rule.
I also teach them what to do when they get to a word where they try “the first one does the talking” and it doesn’t work. Like with the word “earth”. If it’s a word we’ve never studied, they could try other vowel sounds to see if it makes sense. Or try the short vowel and see if that makes sense. Usually they can check with me to be sure. We often keep track of the words that don’t follow the rule on the wall so we can pay special attention to them.
Stacey Keniston
says:Crystal, I’m with you all the way. During my O-G Tutor training we were taught to avoid it at all costs. Eighteen years later, I teach it much like you described. Mainly because I have not met a student who has not heard it from someone. Luckily it does work with the most common and first taught vowel teams. Then when we get to au….,”Our word is launch, does that fit our VT rule and make the long a sound?” “What sound does it make?” It’s like from out of no where, isn’t it?
Raymond Abobo
says:Thanks again
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceThank you for explaining your approach to this rule, Crystal.
Jeannie
says:Yep! And I continued to teach that rule after I began my teaching career until I learned all about Orton-Gillingham and other reading methods. Thank you for pointing this out. I love your articles and your knowledge is outstanding and practical. I am a retired special education teacher and just recently starting working with a severly dyslexic student. I am reteaching myself all kinds of new things to help her using your articles. Your All About Reading program is really great! Just started using that, too!
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceI’m so pleased to hear that All About Reading and the articles here are helpful for you, Jeannie! Thank you.
Christine S
says:Even the phonograms don’t always follow the rules: “ai” does not always have the long a sound, as in the word “said” yet it does in the word “afraid”. So many rules and so many rule breakers. That is the beauty of the English language. And the frustration. It pulls from so many different languages and they all have their own little unique qualities that have to be applied to our English version. And then we have to take into account all the colloquialisms. It’s a wonder any of us learn it. 😂
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceEnglish sure is interesting, Christin!
However, the AI phonogram is actually very reliable. Said and again are pretty much the only words that use this phonogram without the long A sound. Learning to read AI with a long sound allows children to easily decode hundreds of words, and then they only need to be taught these two separately (there might be one or two more exceptions that I am forgetting, but I don’t think so). And even with said and again, all the other phonograms in these words say what we expect, so they are still partially decodable. Learning phonograms, even though there are words with exceptions, is far easier for students than just trying to memorize all words.
But you are correct English being influenced by so many languages, regional colloquialisms, so on. It can be frustrating, but it has a lot of positives too! For example, English is very flexible, adapting quickly and easily to new situations and media (think the company name Google becoming a verb, to google!).
David
says:Other ai words that don’t use the long a sound: plaid, captain, and just about any word with “air” in it (which to me rhymes with “there,” but maybe I’ve been saying “air” wrong all these years).
Robin
says: Customer ServiceGreat thinking, David!
Plaid is a true rule-breaker for the AI phonogram. Additional rule-breakers would be said, again, against, and aisle (I looked it up: this is the full list.)
Captain and other words like mountain, retail, and villainy are something else. In these words, the AI is in an unaccented syllable (also called an unstressed syllable). Any vowel or vowel team in an unaccented syllable can take on a schwa sound, which is a muffled /uh/ or /ih/ sound. These sorts of words is where The “Pronounce for Spelling” Technique is so helpful. Our How to Teach Schwas blog post will have more information about schwa vowels.
Lastly, “there” does have the /air/ sound. “There” is a rule-breaker! The word “they” has a long A sound, and when you add the “re” as a contraction of “they are” it becomes they’re. This is a homophone of there, long A with an /r/ sound. The American /r/ is a tricky sound that shifts vowels before it. So, for many regional accents, “air” may sound a bit different than long A then /r/. However, that shift is subtle and isn’t really a completely new sound for most English speakers.
I hope this helps clear things up some. AI says what we expect to say about 98% of the time.
Corinne G. Johnson
says:Very helpful
Shasta
says:We learned abought the Bossy R.
Suzette Spears
says:I would not say that the rule is “fake”. It does apply in many words. What I teach my children is that there is no rule that applies to all words all the time, that is just how the English language works. The two vowels rule is one of several choices I teach my students to use when decoding or encoding words. The rules are there to help the students with the language, children have to learn to allow their brains the flexibility to understand learning to read is a scientific process and when decoding a word, when the first strategy does not work, change the variable, and try to say the word again.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceSuzette,
Many rules in English hold true 95% of the time or greater, and All About Reading and All About Spelling chooses to teach only those highly reliable rules. Learning phonograms makes this “two vowels” rule unnecessary anyway.
Noella Tesheca Robinson
says:Please send me more tips on Spelling, Phonics and Grammar notes this would help with 5th Grader.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceNoella,
Please sign up for our email newsletter for weekly tips on reading and spelling.
Also, you will find lots and lots of information on reading here and lots of articles and tips for spelling here. Note, All About Learning Press does not cover grammar except as it relates to reading and spelling.
If you have specific concerns or questions, I would be happy to help.
clara
says:Thank you ma’am
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Clara.
Poorvi
says:Nice information
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Poorvi!
Mary Oelschlager
says:Thank you! Thank you for taking the time to research this. I’ve been tripping over this rule for years when teaching young students because there are so many exceptions!
I absolutely agree, teaching phonogram “chunks” is the way to go.
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Mary. I’m glad this will be helpful for you and your students!
Amanda
says:Very helpful! Thank you
Robin E.
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Amanda! Glad it was helpful!