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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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Pp'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Bb'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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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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Alliteration Poem Poster
A poster providing a definition and example of an alliteration poem.
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Diagnostic Reading Assessment for Teachers (Phonological Awareness)
Test your students' phonological awareness with this diagnostic reading assessment.
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SPLAT! CCVC Word Game
A set of 36 task cards to practice decoding and reading CCVC words.
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SPLAT! CVC Word Game
A set of 36 task cards to practice decoding and reading 3-letter words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SEE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “see” from the Pre-Primer Dolch sight words list.
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Roll it! Read it! Write it! Dolch 1st Grade Sight Words
Practice reading and writing Dolch’s first grade high-frequency words with this board game for multiple players.
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Phonics Assessment - Uppercase and Lowercase Letters
Test your students' knowledge of the uppercase and lowercase letters in the alphabet with this assessment kit.
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Letter Craft Activity - 'C' is For Cat
Assist young students with letter recognition, phonemic awareness and fine motor development with an adorable Letter C Cat Craft Template.
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Months of the Year Worksheets
Read, write, and spell the months of the year with a set of printable Months of the Year worksheets for kindergarten.
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Ch Digraph Words With Images
Learn words that contain the 'ch' digraph with these word and picture flashcards.
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Ng Digraph Words With Images
Learn words that contain the 'ng' digraph with these word and picture flashcards.
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Blends Coding Robot Mat
A coding robot mat focusing on different letter blends.
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Learn to Read Short A - Daily Phonics for Kids
Teach your students to read short a words with a daily digital phonics instructional slide deck.
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Alphabet Interactive - Letter O
Optimize identification of the letter O with a Google Interactive Activity.
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Alphabet Google Interactive - Letter G
Add hands-on literacy activites to your Halloween reading centers to help students identify, write, and learning the sound of the “ghostly” letter G.
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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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R-Controlled Vowel Posters
Supplement your phonics curriculum with an R-controlled vowel poster display.
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Google Slides Interactive- CCVC Word Building Activity
Practice identifying consonants, vowels, blends, and digraphs sounds while spelling 22 CCVC (consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant) words.
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100 Alphabet Letters
Practice counting to 100 by 1’s with upper and lowercase alphabet cards and our 100 chart.
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Read, Find, and Color – CVC Words
Practice decoding CVC words with this set of five "search and find" worksheets.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SOON
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “soon” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Final e BINGO - O_E
Decode final e words with the long o vowel sound using this set of 20 bingo game boards.
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Final e BINGO - I_E
Decode final e words with the long i vowel sound using this set of 20 bingo game boards.
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Final e BINGO - A_E
Decode final e words with the long a vowel sound using this set of 20 bingo game boards.
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Beginning Sound Bingo
Practice applying letter-sound correspondence with a set of 20 BINGO game boards and cards.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - AM
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “am” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - GET
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “get” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - WHO
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “who” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - What
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “what” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.