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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Syllable Puzzles - Apple-Themed Activity
Practice segmenting, blending, and identifying types of syllables in words with a set of apple themed puzzles.
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Types of Syllables Anchor Charts
Remind your students about the most common syllable types with this set of classroom display posters.
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Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets - CVCC/CCVC Words
Use this worksheet pack to give students practice at segmenting words into phonemes.
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Fall Phonics - Kindergarten Worksheet Pack
Bring a bit of fall into the classroom with a set of fall-themed worksheets covering syllables, blending, segmenting, and more!
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Kindergarten Morning Work (August)
Practice foundational math and language arts skills during the month of August with this collection of 23 kindergarten morning work worksheets.
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Prefixes Interactive Teaching Presentation
Teach your students to correctly identify, define, and spell words that include common prefixes with an interactive teaching presentation.
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Multisyllable Words Google Interactive
Build multisyllable word decoding skills with upper-grade students with a Google Slides interactive activity.
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Short and Long Vowels Google Interactive Activity
Read and identify short and long vowel sounds and place the pictures into the correct columns.
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Weekly Spelling Homework-Year-Long Spelling Worksheets
Practice weekly spelling words to strengthen letter-sound recognition, alphabetization, and sentence writing skills with 36 weeks of worksheets.
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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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This or That! PowerPoint Game - Vowel Teams
An active PowerPoint game to practice decoding words with vowel teams.
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Alphabetical Order Worksheet (Second and Third Letter)
Strengthen alphabetization skills to the third letter with this 2-page worksheet.
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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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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - ALL
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “all” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sign Language Alphabet Poster
Display this poster in your classroom as a reminder of how to represent the letters of the alphabet when spelling words in ASL (American Sign Language).
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Betty Botter Tongue Twister - Poster and Cut-Out Pages
A tongue twister activity using the story 'Betty Botter's Butter'.
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Letter Craft Activity - 'I' is For Insect
An activity to assist young students with letter recognition, phonological awareness, and fine motor development.
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Onset and Rime Match-Up or Interactive Clip Card Activity
Practice forming words by blending onsets and rimes with this set of 15 rime cards that match their picture/onset card.
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Initial Sound Recognition Worksheets (uppercase letters) – Complete Set A–Z
A set of coloring activities to develop letter recognition and phonemic awareness.
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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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Sight Word BINGO (Fry Word List 201-300)
Practice learning sight words 201-300 on the Fry Sight Word List with our set of 22 Sight Words Bingo cards.
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It's Time to Rhyme! - Practice Worksheet
Practice identifying and producing rhyming sets with this independent or partner worksheet.
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My Little Sight Word Book - Said
A little book of activities for the sight word ‘said’.
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SPLAT! CVCC Word Game
A set of 36 task cards to practice decoding and reading CVCC words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - WERE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “were” from the First Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - I
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “I” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - GO
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “go” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Letter Confusion Worksheets
A set of 10 worksheets for students struggling with dyslexia and letter confusion.
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Word Twist - Word Building Game
Encourage word building in your classroom with this fun Boggle-style game!
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Letter Ww - Alphabet Worksheet
An activity worksheet to use in the classroom when learning about phonics and the letter W.
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Letter Confusion Poster - b and d
A poster highlighting the difference between b and d letterforms.
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Vowel Digraphs Poster Pack
A poster showing words and pictures for various vowel blends.