AU

The /ɔː/ of haul and sauce, used inside a word. Pairs with aw, which does the same job at the end.

Vowel teams

au TEAM_AU_01

Strong rule · High reliability · Occasional · Intermediate · Reading and spelling

• /ɔː/ au: haul, sauce, author

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 10: Diphthongs & Variant Vowels

Child explanation

A and u together say /ɔː/ — the sound in haul and sauce.

The rule

Au represents /ɔː/ at the beginning or in the middle of a word, with aw as its end-of-word partner.

What is really going on

The third medial/final pair, after ai/ay and oi/oy. Reliable for /ɔː/, with laugh and aunt as the notable breaks and because as a very common word where the value varies.

Position in the word

• Beginning of a word — Reliable. For example: author, autumn, August, auto.
• Middle of a word — The usual position. For example: haul, sauce, launch, fault.
• End of a word — Au does not end English words; aw does.

Examples

Easy examples

haul, sauce, autumn, author, fault

More examples

launch, laundry, haunt, pause, cause, because, applaud, August, auto, daughter, caught

Pseudo-words

Made-up words that follow the rule. A child who reads these has the pattern rather than the vocabulary.

blaunt, shaul, fraup

Exceptions

• laugh and aunt: laugh, laughter, aunt. Two words where au is not /ɔː/.

Contrast pairs

• haul versus hall — Two spellings, one sound.
• sauce versus saw — Middle-of-word au versus end-of-word aw.

Teacher note

By the time au arrives, children have already met the medial/final pattern twice with ai/ay and oi/oy. Point that out explicitly — it turns a new grapheme into an instance of something already known, which is the whole value of an organised rule bank.

Related rules

• AW — aw — The end-of-word partner to au. Saw, draw, law, crawl — reliable for /ɔː/.
• The -all, -alk and -alt families — -all -alk -alt -alm — After a, the letter l changes the vowel to /ɔː/ — and in -alk and -alm the l goes silent as well.
• The AUGH family — -augh — Usually /ɔː/ with a silent gh — caught, taught, daughter. Laugh is the one that says /ɑːf/.
• OA — oa — Long o inside a word. Highly reliable, and like ai it does not end English words — ow does that.

• Previous in Vowel teams: OO and its two sounds — oo — /uː/ in moon and /ʊ/ in book. Roughly three to one in favour of moon, with no spelling clue — but a strong clue in the following consonant.
• Next in Vowel teams: AW — aw — The end-of-word partner to au. Saw, draw, law, crawl — reliable for /ɔː/.
• All reading rules

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