(I'll preface this by saying we are abroad, so DD is not learning to read English at school, I am teaching her at home. But i am not a teacher.)
DD asked me how to read the word "great" and I said the "ea" was like the /ai/ sound of pain. We have already done grapheme variations for the /ai/ sound, such as "ay" (way, stay, play) and split digraphs with a_e (state, plate, rate).
But now I am looking for any other words where "ea" is pronounced as /ai/.
I can't think of any off hand.
Thanks.