A short, decodable story embedding diphthong — ou words. Students read the passage then highlight all the target words.
Scout's Lost Hound
Skill: Diphthong — OU • Sight Words: the, is, a, and, to, was, it, she, he, they, said, have, with, you, are, be
Coloring page included in PDF
Scout's hound was not in the house. Where did he go? Scout went out to look. She ran round the big lot. She put her hands to her mouth. "Where are you?" she gave a big shout. Then Scout heard a sound from the back of the lot. She ran to a little mound of mud. There she found him! Her hound sat on top of the mound. He looked down at a fresh green sprout. He looked so proud. "There you are!" Scout said with a grin. She was glad she found him.
Circle or highlight all the OU diphthong words in the story above. How many did you find?
Cut out the word cards and sort them into the correct columns: Real Words vs Nonsense Words.
Real Words
Nonsense Words
out
our
ouch
mouth
south
found
hound
mound
pound
round
loux
toux
boux
coux
houx
zoux
Generated in your browser
3 Phrasing Practice Cards
Practice reading these phrases for fluency. Cut out the cards and read them quickly and smoothly.
the out on our
a our in ouch
the ouch and mouth
a mouth with south
the south on found
a found in hound
the hound and mound
a mound with pound
the pound on round
Generated in your browser
4 RAN Chart (Rapid Naming)
Read each word in the grid as quickly as you can. Time yourself and try to beat your best time!
Decodable RAN Chart — Diphthong — OU
out
shout
pound
count
pound
south
south
shout
count
pound
out
shout
out
out
count
south
Target words: out, south, pound, count, shout
Generated in your browser
5 Word Search
Find and circle the diphthong — ou words hidden in the grid. Words go across, down, and diagonally — a fun way to reinforce diphthong — ou word recognition.
Next step: once your child can sound out these words, have them read a matching decodable mini-book. Each Diphthong — OU reader is a printable story + coloring page using only sounds they've learned.
These free diphthong (ou) worksheets provide structured phonics practice for the OU diphthong. Activities include a decodable passage embedding target words in a fun story, a word sort activity to distinguish real and nonsense words, phrasing practice cards for fluency building, and a rapid naming (RAN) chart for automaticity. Each worksheet prints cleanly on standard US Letter paper.
