Read words with the vowel teams aw and au, two spellings for the same sound, and notice that au usually appears in the middle of a word while aw often ends a word.
Aw and au both make the same sound, the one in saw and haul. Aw often shows up at the end of a word or right before n, like saw, claw, and lawn. Au usually shows up in the middle of a word, like haul and sauce.
This is the same kind of pattern as oa from last year, which almost always lives in the middle of a word and never at the very end.
Mastery looks like: They read aw and au words with the correct sound and notice the typical spot each spelling appears in a word.
Common stumbles: Confusing aw and au with the short-o sound, or reading them as two separate vowels.
See it visually
Interactive, spoken-aloud tools that show this idea in motion.