‘Vowel team’ is a term used mostly in the USA for a spelling of more than one letter that represents a vowel sound. In the English writing system, sounds can be represented by 1–4 letters. Vowel sounds can also be represented by 1–4 letters. Here are some examples of vowel teams:

ai as in ‘rain’ – a two-letter vowel team

igh as in ‘night’ – a three-letter vowel team

ough as in ‘dough’ – a four letter vowel team

Why is it important?

The term ‘vowel team’ is a useful shorthand for discussing vowel spellings (graphemes) with more than one letter. It indicates to beginner readers that the correspondence between the sound and the spelling is more complex – has more than one letter. It is a more general concept than the term ‘vowel digraph’ which indicates the spelling has only two letters, or the term ‘vowel trigraph’, in which the spelling has three letters.