Phonics Teaching Resources
Make teaching phonics easy with printable phonics worksheets, activities, games and more designed for elementary ELA and ELAR teachers.
This collection of curriculum-aligned teaching resources has been carefully reviewed by our expert teaching team to make sure every resource is classroom-ready — so we can make your lesson planning easier!
New to teaching phonics, or just looking for new ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is Phonics?
You've likely heard the word "phonics" thousands of times throughout your own education and maybe on one of those old as from the '90s. But what is phonics, exactly?
Phonics is technically defined as the systematic instruction of the relationships between letters and sounds in written language. But that's a mouthful, isn't it? More simply, phonics is the word we use to refer to the method of teaching reading by focusing on the relationship between written letters and the sounds they represent.
In phonics, kids learn how to decode written words by recognizing the sound-symbol correspondence.
Phonics vs. Phonemic Awareness
When we start talking about letters and their sounds, we start to wander into phonemic awareness territory. So what's the difference?
The words phonics and phonemic are similar, and the two concepts are — surprise, surprise — related. But there are key differences.
Phonemic awareness is essentially the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds — aka phonemes — in spoken language. It's those individual sounds and their correspondence to the letter symbols that can be used by kids to then decode written words.
So students learn to recognize the individual sounds of spoken language (phonemes) and how these sounds can be represented by letters (graphemes) in written language. Then they apply this knowledge to decode written words by understanding the sound-symbol correspondence.
Consider this example:
- Let's say your student can identify the separate sounds in a spoken word such as "cat" (i.e., /k/ /a/ /t/). That's phonemic awareness.
- Now let's say you're teaching that same student that the letter "c" represents the /k/ sound and that the letter "a" represents the /a/ sound, and that these sounds combine to form the word "cat." That's phonics!
How to Teach Phonics
OK, you probably already know that phonics is all about teaching word recognition via grapheme-phoneme associations and letter-sound correspondences.
It’s a means of teaching early readers the pieces that make up a word so they can blend them together to decode the English language as readers and writers.
But how do you teach it?
In the earliest stages, phonics instruction typically begins with teaching students the most common letter-sound relationships. You start with consonants, then move on to vowels, then consonant blends.
Students then learn to sound out words by decoding the letters and blending the sounds together to form words.
Phonics Vocabulary Terms
The English language system is one of the hardest to teach and learn, so how do you teach phonics? Let’s start with the phonics vocabulary.
- For starters, there are 26 letters that create approximately 44 phonemes, the word for the individual speech sounds that make up words. Put together, phonemes make words. OK, easy enough, right?
- Well, these phonemes can be written in over more than 200 different letter combinations, known as graphemes. Graphemes can be made up of 1 letter (such as “p” in “pig”), 2 letters (such as “gh” in ghost), 3 letters (such as “igh” in night), or 4 letters (such as “ough” in rough).
- Then there are digraphs or two letters that work together to make one sound — such as “ph” in graph. But wait, isn’t that a grapheme? Yup, a digraph is a type of grapheme.
- So is a trigraph, trigraphs, aka three letters that work together to make one sound, such as “dge” in edge.
- And if you’re teaching phonics, you can’t forget dipthongs, the name for a sound that is formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, such as “ou” in loud.
Most students will spend kindergarten, first, and even second grade getting a handle on all phonics elements!
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Vowel Teams Diphthong Worksheets
Practice diphthongs with this set of fun and engaging worksheets.
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Vowel Teams Poster Set
Display this poster set in your classroom when teaching children about different vowel teams.
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Consonant Digraph Cut-and-Paste Worksheets
Reinforce your students' knowledge of consonant digraphs with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets.
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Alphabet Letter Match
A fun match-up activity to consolidate your students' knowledge of uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Building Compound Words - Puzzles
Practice building compound words with this set of 20 puzzles, each with three pieces—two smaller words and the compound word they form.
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Digraph Coding Robot Mat
Practice identifying digraphs with the help of a coding robot and mat.
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Spelling Words with -s, -es, and -ies Worksheets
Practice using the inflectional endings -s, -es, and -ies with a pack of English worksheets.
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In My Classroom Concept Book
A printable concept book for children to discuss things around their classroom.
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Phonemes and Their Graphemes - PowerPoint
A 56 slide PowerPoint presentation on phonemes and their graphemes.
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Spin and Spell - Months of the Year Worksheet
Spin and spell the months of the year with a printable spelling worksheet for 2nd Grade.
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Medial L Words - List & Flashcards
Practice reading and articulating Medial L words with a list of 50 words and accompanying illustrated flash cards.
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Long I Vowel Teams Interactive Activity
Practice identifying the different vowel teams that spell the long /i/ sound with this fun iceberg-themed interactive activity.
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ABC's of Gratefulness - A to Z Gratitude List
Make a list of things to be grateful for with a printable A to Z gratitude list template.
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Plural Nouns Chart - Printable Plural Rules Guide
Give your students a reference guide to help them remember all of the different plural rules.
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OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore "ou" and "ow" words with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Google Interactive Word Building-CVCe Words
Practice identifying consonant and vowel sounds while spelling CVCe (consonant-vowel-consonant-e) words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - WRITE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “write” from the Second Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - HER
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “her” from the First Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Segmenting and Blending Mats
A set of beautifully designed templates for students to practice blending and segmenting words.
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Alphabetical Order Activity
A fun matchup activity to help teach children the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.
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Th Digraph Lesson Resource Pack
Introduce students to the th digraph with this set of teaching slides and mini activity book.
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Diphthong Vowel Teams Posters
Display this set of posters highlighting the main diphthong vowel teams with word examples and mouth articulation images.
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Halloween Spelling Practice Worksheets
Practice weekly spelling words with a spooktacular Halloween twist with a set of printable Halloween spelling worksheets.
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Word Study List - Ending Blends
Introduce and explore words containing ending blends with this extensive list of words.
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Compound Words Cut and Paste - Worksheet
Cut, paste, and write to form open and closed compound words with a word-building worksheet.
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Multisyllable Words Worksheets
Build multisyllable word decoding skills with a Science of Reading based worksheet pack.
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How Many Syllables? - Worksheet
Practice counting syllables in spoken words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - HAVE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “have” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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CVCC Word Work Mat
Practice segmenting and spelling simple words with this set of 24 CVCC picture task cards.
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Roll and Read – Rhyming Words
A fun game for students to practice reading rhyming words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - AFTER
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “after” from the First Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - FUNNY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “funny” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.