All About Digraph Vowels

Digraph vowels are similar to vowel teams because they use two vowels to indicate one vowel sound. Whereas vowel teams make a long vowel sound, digraph vowels make unique sounds. Some of these are diphthongs that slide from one vowel to another, while others are not. However, many curricula refer to these a diphthong vowels.

AU / AW: AU is found in the beginning or middle of a word. AW is usually found at the end of a base word. An exception is when aw is front of an N.

• Begin AU: aunt, auto, August, author
• Middle AU: daughter, pause, gauze
• AW: jaw, saw, straw
• AWN: yawn, lawn, drawn, fawn

Note: Half of the US pronounces AU/AW as short O. 

OO: OO has two different sounds, Short OO as in book and Long OO as in too. Some common words that make the long OO sound are spelled with only one O.

• Short OO: cook, took, look, wood,
• short OO sound: could, would, should
• Long OO: zoo, room, broom, shoot, root
• Long OO: to, do, today, tomorrow, tonight

OI / OY: OI is found in the beginning or middle of a word. OY is usually found at the end of a base word.

• OI: oil, oink, toilet, coin, join, point, boil, voice
• OY: boy, toy, joy, enjoy, employ

OU / OW: OU is found in the beginning or middle of a word. OW is at the end of a base word and in front of l, n, er, and el.

• OU: ouch, house, south, sound, cloud, noun, loud
• OW: now, cow, how, wow
• OWL: owl, growl, howl, fowl
• OWN: down, town, brown, clown
• OWER: tower, flower, shower, power
• OWEL: towel, vowel