English – Appendix 1: Spelling
5
Vowel
digraphs
and trigraphs
Rules and guidance
(non-statutory)
Example words
(non-statutory)
oo (/u:/)
(/ʊ/)
Very few words end with the
letters oo, although the few that
do are often words that primary
children in year 1 will encounter,
for example, zoo
food, pool, moon, zoo, soon
oo
book, took, foot, wood, good
oa The digraph oa is very rare at the
end of an English word.
boat, coat, road, coach, goal
oe toe, goes
ou The only common English word
ending in ou is you.
out, about, mouth, around,
sound
ow (/aʊ/)
(/əʊ/) ow
ue
ew
Both the /u:/ and /ju:/ (‘oo’ and
‘yoo’) sounds can be spelt as u–e,
ue and ew. If words end in the
/oo/ sound, ue and ew are more
common spellings than oo.
now, how, brown, down, town
own, blow, snow, grow, show
blue, clue, true, rescue, Tuesday
new, few, grew, flew, drew, threw
ie (/aɪ/)
(/i:/)
lie, tie, pie, cried, tried, dried
ie chief, field, thief
igh high, night, light, bright, right
or for, short, born, horse, morning
ore more, score, before, wore, shore
aw saw, draw, yawn, crawl
au author, August, dinosaur,
astronaut
air air, fair, pair, hair, chair
ear dear, hear, beard, near, year
ear (/ɛə/)
(/ɛə/)
bear, pear, wear
are
bare, dare, care, share, scared