I am a graduate student at Bloomsburg University. My first client is a 16-year-old girl with phonological awareness goals. She still has difficulty with reading. I worked with her last semester with another clinician. We were working on phonics rules such as “when two vowels are paired together they take the long vowel sound of the first vowel.” I was wondering where I could go to find more rules like these that will help her to pronounce and read words correctly if applied. I know that English is a difficult language and there are many exceptions to these rules, but I am desperately trying to find a website or something that will provide me with more information. If you could direct me to some information, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks for being so patient with me while I found some good sites for you. Two great ones:
dyslexia.org/spelling_rules.shtml
kingsharvest.com/spellingrules.html

I’ve included the pre-school version of your two-vowel rule—it might be easier for her to memorize. I sing this in my classroom to a little tune, any chant-type rhythm would work.

The Two-Vowel Rule
“When two vowels go walking”—as in bean or as in gate (the two vowels are walking together in the same word)
“The first one does the talking”
“And says his own name”—ask him what the name of the first vowel is (bean–it’s e so that’s the sound that the vowels are going to make in this word–long e)
“The second goes to sleep!” (b e a n –have him literally cross out the second vowel here with an x or slash.)

Also the rule about “ar”
When together they always say “ar” as in car, bar, Clark, etc.