Keep Digraphs Together When You Divide

Never split letter pairs like ch, sh, th, and ph that spell one sound.

A digraph is two letters that spell one sound, such as ch, sh, th, wh, ph, and ck. When you divide a word, treat a digraph like one letter and never cut it in half. Look at 'panther'. The vowels are a and e, and between them are n, t, h. Since t and h make the single sound /th/, treat them as one unit. Now there are really two consonant sounds, n and th, so divide pan-ther.

Another example: 'dolphin'. The ph says /f/, so divide dol-phin. With 'rocket', the ck stays with the first syllable: rock-et. If you split a digraph, the word will sound wrong, which is a good sign to move your line.

• 1Digraphs (ch, sh, th, wh, ph, ck) spell one sound.
• 2Treat a digraph like a single letter when dividing.
• 3ck stays with the syllable before it: rock-et.