Kids almost always circle the U in QUICK or QUIZ… because everything they’ve ever learned says U is a vowel. But here’s the twist no one explains clearly: Q and U stick together like glue — they make one sound: /kw/. Which means… 👉 U isn’t doing the vowel job here. 👉 The NEXT letter is the real vowel. quick → I quiz → I queen → E quad → A Once kids see it — not just hear it — the whole QU pattern finally makes sense. If you want more visual, hands-on ways to make spelling rules actually stick…