English Phonics & Word Readingusually ages 4–7

Vowel Digraphs

Read and spell words containing common vowel digraphs (ai, ay, ee, ea, oa, oe, oo, oi, oy) including where a digraph can represent more than one sound

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

Read words with vowel digraphs (e.g. 'tree', 'boat', 'rain', 'coin')
Distinguish between different sounds for the same digraph (e.g. 'oo' in 'book' vs 'moon')
Spell words using common vowel digraph patterns

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Try this together

When your child reads a word like 'rain', 'boat', or 'moon', can they recognise the vowel pair that makes a special sound and read the whole word correctly?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on

Single Letter Soundsages 4–6Must know single letter sounds before vowel digraphs

Vowel Digraphsthis skill · ages 4–7

Unlocks

Split Digraphs and Magic Eages 5–7Need to understand vowel sounds before split digraphs

Alternative Spellings for Known Soundsages 6–8Must know common vowel digraphs before learning alternative representations

Diphthongs and complex vowelsages 5–6Related vowel knowledge supports diphthongs

Trigraphsages 5–6Vowel digraph knowledge supports trigraphs

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E1LY11high confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

use short vowels, common long vowels, consonant blends and digraphs to write words, and blend these to read one- and two-syllable words

AC9E1LY12high confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound

AC9E3LY11medium confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

use phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships and less common letter patterns to spell words

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

EN1-PHOKW-01high confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 1

ENE-PHOKW-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Early Stage 1

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2E2LY04high confidenceEnglish · Level 2 · Literacy strand

VC2E1LY04high confidenceEnglish · Level 1 · Literacy strand

VC2E1LY05medium confidenceEnglish · Level 1 · Literacy strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Blending Sounds to Read Wordsages 4–7 Consonant Digraphsages 4–7 Knowing all lettersages 4–6 Onsets & Rimesages 4–7

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