OW (cow) Sound Word List
The /ow/ sound is one of four sounds you can think of as beginning with the letter “o”. The four sounds are /ow/ (cow), /oy/ (toy), /oo/ (zoo), and /oul/ (would).
Of the 7,000 words in the database constructed from a popular children’s dictionary, 78 of them are one-syllable words in which the vowel sound is /ow/. The three spellings of the /ow/ sound are "ow", "ou", and "ough". Children should be taught that the /ow/ sound is the first one they should try when encountering any one of those three spellings, so this list is a good one to draw from when looking for easy words to include in a short story.
The most common spellings are "ow" and "ou" in one-syllable words. The "ough" spelling is found in only two one-syllable words in the database. The "ou" spelling is not found at the end of words, so if the word ends in the /ow/ sound it generally has the "ow" spelling (the exception being the word bough).
