There are always exceptions to the spelling/phonics rules and good teachers point that out. This is no reason to throw out the entire system as they did starting in the 60’s.
I agree--I'm a big phonics fan. I don't remember the stated rule of the leading vowel running the show from my learning days, tho.
That “rule” is actually the exception. It only works about 27% of the time. It is a bogus rule. Why teach that when you can teach what the vowels combinations actually say?
My four year old is learning these sounds.
‘ea’ can say /E/ as in beat, /e/ as in bread or /A/ as in break.
‘ou’ has four sounds as in the words ‘our’, ‘fourth’, ‘tour’, ‘famous’
‘ai’,’oi’, ‘au’, and ‘oa’ only have one sound each and may not be used at the end of English words
‘oe’ says /O/ and may be used at the end
‘oo’ has three sounds as in ‘food’, ‘took’, ‘floor’
‘ie’ say /E/ as in ‘thief’ and this is it’s most common sound
it also say /I/ as in ‘tie’
The English language makes more sense than the cutesy bogus rules would have you believe. No wonder children have such a hard time learning to read if they are being remediated with rules that only work 27% of the time.