aw, au- I can draw....

and other letter combinations!

This week we have been reviewing letter combinations. Most of our students were introduced to letter combinations in Kindergarten. However, we are digging deeper in 1st grade!

Letter combinations are simply that- a combination of letters that work together to create a sound. Letter combinations may include (but are not limited to) diphthongs, complex vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, and welded sounds.

This week we have concentrated on the sounds /aw/ and /ō/. The /aw/ sound can be made with either ‘aw’ or ‘au’. Examples of words with /aw/ are claw, pause, daughter, awful. The /ō/ sound can be made in several ways: with a bossy e, ‘oe’, ‘ough’, ‘oa’, and ‘ow’. We have focused on the last two this week using words like crow, boat, flow, foam.

Encourage your child to listen for these sounds as they write words. We have discussed where in a word they are most likely to see each combination (for example, ‘oa’ does not typically come at the end of a word). They should begin using these letter combinations in all of their writing!

For a complete list of our letter combinations, see the files on our Shutterfly page.