Phonics Teaching Resources
Make teaching phonics easy with printable phonics worksheets, activities, games and more designed for primary teachers.
This collection of Australian 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 recognising 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 recognise 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 in Primary School
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 to Remember
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 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 foundation, year 1 and even year 2 getting a handle on all phonics elements!
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 1)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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Digraph Handwriting - Worksheets
24 digraph worksheets that focus on handwriting and vocabulary activities.
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Compound Words - Word Search Pack
Search, find, and spell compound words with a fun set of Compound Word Word Search Puzzles!
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OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore words containing ‘ow’ and ‘ou’ with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Dot-to-Dot Alphabet Worksheets
Use this set of 3 dot-to-dot worksheets to get your youngest students practising their recognition of the alphabet.
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Phonics Sound Wall Display
Build a classroom sound wall to match your phonics programs and literacy progressions with a printable sound wall display.
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Colour by Letter Worksheet Pack (SATPIN)
Help students with their recognition of the letters – s,a,t,p,i,n with this colour by letter worksheet pack.
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Alphabet Bingo Upper and Lowercase Recognition
Give students the opportunity to practise the recognition of lowercase and uppercase letters with this set of alphabet bingo cards.
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Long Vowel Digraph Sort Cut-and-Paste
Reinforce your students' knowledge of long vowel digraphs with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets.
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Alphabet Craft Printable Templates
Assist young students with letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and fine motor development with these adorable alphabet craft templates.
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Alphabet Letter-Sound Assessment Pack
Assess your students abilities to write their names, identify letters, letter sounds, and initial/middle/ending sounds with a printable alphabet assessment pack.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 2)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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CVC Beginning and Ending Letters Worksheet Pack
Practise identifying missing beginning and ending sounds and letters in this set of 10 CVC worksheets.
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Consonant Digraph Cut-and-Paste Worksheets
Reinforce your students' knowledge of digraphs with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets.
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Digraph Search and Find Worksheet Pack
Search for images that contain particular consonant digraphs with this worksheet pack.
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Long E Words - Word Search
Explore words containing some of the most common ‘long e’ graphemes with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Phoneme Spotter Story - Long 'a' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'a' sound.
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Suffix Word Building Activity
Build words using the suffixes -ed, -es, -s, and -ing with a printable word-building pocket chart card pack.
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Prefixes, Suffixes and Roots - Dictionary Hunt Worksheet
Investigate the morphological meanings of word-parts with this dictionary hunt.
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‘Have’ Sight Word Little Book
A little book with activities for the word ‘have’.
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Prefixes and Suffixes Posters
Increase vocabulary skills with anchor charts about common prefixes and suffixes.
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Long Vowel Digraph Writing Worksheet
Learn to encode long vowel digraphs with this set of writing worksheets.
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Long E Vowel Digraphs Interactive Activity
Practise identifying the different graphemes that spell the long /e/ sound with this fun space-themed interactive activity.
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Ck Digraph Lesson Resource Pack
Introduce students to the ck digraph with this set of teaching slides and mini activity book.
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Printable Alphabet Colouring Pages
Use printable alphabet colouring pages to boost letter recognition skills.
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My Alphabet Book - Printable Alphabet Worksheets
Learn the letters of the alphabet and their sounds with printable ABC worksheets
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OI and OY Words - Word Search
Explore words containing ‘oi’ and ‘oy’ with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Long and Short Vowel Sort
A sorting by long vowel, short vowel printable.
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Busy Binder - Morning Work Pages for Kindergarten
Review daily calendar, maths, literacy, and fine motor skills with a printable morning work pages for kindergarten!
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Colour by Sight Words - 6 Words - Snake
Practise sight words for kindergarten and more with a printable color by sight word worksheet.
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Read, Find and Colour – CVC Words
Consolidate your students' decoding skills with this set of search and find worksheets.
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First 100 Fry Sight Words – Practice Mat
A hands-on resource to enable your students to practise reading and writing a range of high-frequency words.