Oh so many phonics rules to remember! From remembering that vowels have two sounds to the more advanced rules- WOW! It’s quite a bit for our little readers and writers. As we teach the rules, it’s always helpful to incorporate visuals and stories. It gives our students something to anchor to when coming across a word in text or when trying to correctly spell the word when writing. Teaching the “Defender D” rule is super fun! After students understand the magic e rule (the “e” at the end of a one syllable word makes the vowel long), we introduce an exception to that rule. When a word ends in “dge”, the “d” stops the “e” from making the vowel say