Read with an adult. Take your time. You can say, point, draw or write your answer.
1 Let's look together
Read saw with your adult. Aw works together for its vowel sound.
Listen to pause. Here au writes a matching vowel sound in the model. The spellings differ, so look carefully at each word.
aw — saw, drawau — pause, sauce
Look, point and talk with your adult.
2 Watch how I do it
My adult reads saw. I point to aw. Then we read pause, point to au and briefly stop our clapping to show its meaning.
3 Your turn
Which spelling is in draw: aw or au?
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Let's check together
aw. Read draw after your adult.
4 Try it away from the page
Make an aw group with saw and draw, and an au group with pause and sauce. Read the cards again and discuss the meanings.
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Adult notes · prerequisites, safety and coverage
Teach aw and au in separate short sessions before comparison. Pronunciation varies by accent. Model final /z/ in pause and /s/ in sauce; au in laugh is an exception and is not used as a matching-sound example. Follow the child's taught phonics sequence. An adult reads the instructions, models the sounds and explains unfamiliar vocabulary. Revisit a few words over several days; do not guess words from pictures.
Read instructions aloud. Word-reading practice must match the child's taught sounds. The phonics pages support, but do not replace, the school's systematic synthetic phonics programme. Shared stories are adult-read unless the child can decode them. Re-read and practise daily.
Connect taught sounds and spellings for decoding.
Blend and reread words matched to taught sound-spelling knowledge.
Practise Year 1 spelling patterns, prefixes and endings.