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Unit 14: Spelling the sound /or/

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Unit 14: Spelling choices for /or/ sound: or, ore, au, aw and war

Unit StartPage 1: The most common spellings: or ore au awCourse Test: Spelling test: or ore au awPage 3: Spelling test: or ore au awPage 4: Longer /or/ wordsCourse Test: Spelling test: longer /or/ wordsPage 6: Spelling test: longer /or/ wordsPage 7: war wordsCourse Test: Spelling test: war wordsPage 9: Spelling test: war wordsPage 10: Spelling test: war wordsPage 11: Homophones for or ore au awUnit End

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Unit 14: Spelling the sound /or/: or, ore, au, aw

/or/ as in fork Learning to spell the or sound in English words

Teaching point There are many ways of spelling the /or/ sound. The most common ways are or, ore, au and aw

There are no rules but there are some helpful hints:

  1. Very few words used commonly in English end with au, so if the /or/ sound is at the end of the word, use ore or aw (shore, jaw)
  2. aw is often used if the /or/ sound comes before an n or l (dawn, crawl).

Here are lots more examples that use the /or/ sound. See how many you can learn.

Learning to spell the or sound in English words Learning to spell the or sound in English words Learning to spell the or sound in English words Learning to spell the or sound in English words
or as in fork ore as in shore au as in sauce aw as in jaw

cord
ford
lord*
cork
pork
stork*
form
norm
storm
born
corn
horn
torn
worn*
fort
port
sort*
short
sport
porch
torch
scorch
force
forge
gorge
horse*
horde*
...and many more

 If or is at the end of the word, add e:

ore
bore*
core
gore
lore*
more
chore
score
shore*
snore
sore*
store
swore
tore*
wore*

Rule breakers break spelling rules

for*
tor*		 haul*
maul*
Paul
daub
taut*
fraud
cause
pause*
fault
vault
daunt
gaunt
haunt
jaunt
haunch
launch
paunch
staunch		 law*
saw*
paw*
raw
claw
draw
flaw*
thaw
straw
hawk
squawk
dawn
fawn
lawn
pawn
yawn
drawl
drawn
prawn
spawn
bawl*
crawl
trawl
shawl
scrawl
Learn the Words
Learn the Words: or words
Learn the Words
Learn the Words: -ore words
Learn the Words
Learn the Words: au words
Learn the Words
Learn the Words: aw words
Note: Words marked * are homophones. Please see page 11

You have not completed Learn the Words activities for each word list on this page.

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Take a test in these /or/ words.

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The Spellzone interactive course is intended to be used online and may not be printed.

One of the students has put in a huge amount of effort in completing Spellzone at least 3 times a week since his arrival with us in January. Looking at his scores after the latest GL testing, his standardised score has risen from 99 to 131. This is a truly phenomenal result. I just wanted to share the best result I have ever seen.

Terrie Penrose-Toms, Casterton College

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