A digraph is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined). In simpler terms, a digraph is two letters that make one sound. Digraphs can be made up of vowels or consonants, and they are a building block of literacy for any young reader. There are several kinds of digraphs that students will encounter as readers, including:

• Consonant Digraphs: These are combinations of two consonants that represent one sound. For example, the "wr" digraph represents the sound /r/ in words like write, wriggle, and wrong.

• Vowel Digraphs: These are groups of two letters, at least one of which is a vowel, that make a single sound. For example, the letters "ow" in the word "slow" make the sound /ow/.

Digraphs can be tricky for children to spot in words, but teachers can use sound buttons and sound bars to help. Sound bars are used underneath the digraph to help a child recognize where the digraph is in the word and successfully sound out and blend to read the word.