Is "photo" a split diagraph? Yr 1 homework!

[hidinginthenightgarden]

DS does the phonics test this year.
His homework is a list of words and he has to put the "sound buttons" under the letters.
Only one he is not sure of is PHOTO. He thinks the OTO is a split diagraph but isn't sure. The OO sound isn't mentioned on any sound lists I have seen online.
Is he correct?

No, it's not a split digraph. As PPs have said, split digraphs are when a vowel then a consonant then an e make the same sound that the digraph vowel+e would make if there wasn't a consonant in between.

Eg Cub/Cue/Cube
Cub has the short u sound
Cue has the digraph ue pronounced "you"
Cube has the same ue sound and the e on the end isn't pronounced. The e is actually indicating how to pronounce the "u" (the same way as the digraph ue) but it is "split" from the u by a consonant IYSWIM

Still, he is clearly a very clever boy, he's noticed that the first o in photo is a long o sound and the second o is a short o and thinking abstractly that might mean that it is a split digraph because that is what "magic e" does, it turns the short vowel sound into a long one - tap/tape, them/theme, pip/pipe, not/note, tub/tube.