This little topic was waiting it’s turn since many months. I hope that all of you who had been patiently waiting for this, this post clears all your doubts.
Quickly dissecting the two words – Digraphs - “graphs” – written letters Dipthongs – “thongs” – sounds Di – means two.
Digraph is a pair of vowels or consonants making one sound – sh, ou, ch, oo etc Dipthongs are 2 vowels making a unique sound where one sound glides into another. They are therefore also called as Gliding Vowels. Example – oy, ea . Example – In a word like AUDIENCE, ‘au’ is a digraph and ‘ie’ is a dipthong.
A HELPFUL QUICKY !!
To differentiate between the two, put your index finger and thumb on each side of your cheek and say the sounds, in digraphs – you will feel your jaw bone just moving once but in dipthongs – your jaw bone will move twice as one sound glides into another. For example , let’s take ‘ea’ in words TEACH and CREATED. Say the words one by one, closely observing your jaw move. The amazing thing is ‘ea’ acts both as digraph (TEACH – giving long e sound) and dipthong (in CREATED).
Grossly, we use the term digraphs, dropping ‘dipthong’ for ease of use and understanding.
Note: Please note that this post is exclusively for your understanding and not for your children. The idea behind this post was only to clear your doubts as many members had asked about it. So please, keep this out of reach of children. ;-)
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