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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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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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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Blending Words Reading Warm-Up Task Cards
Get your students ready for reading with these blending words reading warm-up task cards.
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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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Auto-Fill Customizable Spelling Worksheets
Save time making custom spelling lists and spelling practice worksheets with an editable auto-fill spelling worksheet pack.
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Spelling CVCC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CVCC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
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Busy Binder - Kindergarten Morning Work Activity Book
Review daily calendar, math, literacy, and fine motor skills with a printable kindergarten Busy Binder workbook!
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Vowel Teams Diphthong Worksheets
Practice diphthongs with this set of fun and engaging worksheets.
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Digraph Coding Robot Mat
Practice identifying digraphs with the help of a coding robot and mat.
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Science of Reading Decoding Strategy Bookmarks and Poster
Help students succeed in reading fluency with this free printable bookmark and poster set of strategies for decoding unknown words.
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Plural Noun Anchor Charts - Posters
Help children grasp the tricky concept of pluralizing nouns by displaying these 8 plural noun anchor chart posters.
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CVC Beginning and Ending Letters Worksheet Pack
Practice identifying missing beginning and ending sounds and letters in this set of 10 CVC worksheets.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letters Maze Worksheet Set
Help students learn to recognize both uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet with this fun set of maze worksheets.
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Alphabet Letter-Sound Correspondence 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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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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Trick or Treat Digraphs Worksheet
Sort Halloween Digraphs and color them by code with a fun Halloween Phonics worksheet.
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What's Missing? - Alphabet Worksheet
A set of worksheets to practice writing the letters of the alphabet in order.
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R-Words Articulation - Speech Therapy Worksheets
Provide articulation practice with printable speech articulation worksheets for words with beginning, medial, and final /r/ sounds.
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Decodable Text to Picture Match-Up
Four sets of decodable sentences with matching pictures.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'o' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'o' sound.
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Initial Letter Coloring Worksheet
Identify the first letter for each picture and then color it.
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Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check Template (10 Words)
A template to use when learning spelling words.
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Learn to Read Short U - Daily Phonics for Kids
Use our week-long Interactive Short U Word Building Interactive to teach daily phonics lessons for kindergarten!
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Connect the Dots Printable Alphabet Worksheets
Use this set of 3 dot-to-dot worksheets to get your youngest students practicing their recognition of the alphabet.
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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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Vowel Teams Worksheet Pack
Practice writing and enhancing knowledge of vowel digraphs with this worksheet pack.
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Veterans Day Worksheets - ABC Order
Support your students in reviewing the vocabulary and concepts surrounding the Veteran’s Day holiday with an ABC Order Worksheet.
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Th Word List and Digraph Flashcards
Practice reading and spelling words with the Digraph TH with a list of 50 words and accompanying illustrated flash cards.
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Spaceship Word Chains - Worksheets
Manipulate the individual phonemes in 3- and 4-letter words to create new ones with this set of word chain worksheets.
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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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L - Blends Word List
Introduce and explore words containing an initial l-blend with a list of L-blend words.
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Word Study List - R Blend Words
Introduce and explore words containing an initial r-blend with this extensive list of words.