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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Alphabet Playdough Mats
A set of work mats for students to write and form the letters of the alphabet using playdough.
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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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Beat the Blast Off! CVC, CVCC and CCVC Spelling Game
Use this collaborative partner game to familiarize your students with some of the most common CVC, CVCC and CCVC words.
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Alphabet Matching Game
Use this alphabet matching game to familiarize your students with the letters of the alphabet and their corresponding sounds.
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Ants on the Apple – Phonics Rhyme Posters
Use this poster featuring the phonics rhyme “Ants on the Apple” to teach your students the association between letters and their sounds.
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Initial, Medial, & Final L - Articulation Worksheets
Provide articulation practice with printable speech articulation worksheets for words with beginning, medial, and final /l/ sounds.
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K-2 ELA Homework Helpers
Give your students handy ELA Homework Helper printables to reference when working in class or at home.
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Speech Articulation Worksheets - Initial, Medial, Final /w/
Provide articulation practice with printable speech articulation worksheets for words with beginning, medial, and final /w/ sounds.
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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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L-Blends Blending Flashcards
Practice blending l-blends with this set of blending l word cards.
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S-Blends Blending Flashcards
Practice different s blends with this set of flashcards.
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Days of the Week Spelling Worksheets
Use these Days of the Week Spelling worksheets to help your students practice reading, writing, and spelling the Days of the week.
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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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Classroom Alphabet Poster Pack
Create your own classroom alphabet line with these ink-friendly classroom alphabet posters.
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Caterpillar Alphabet Line - Editable
Display the alphabet in your classroom using a Caterpillar Alphabet Line!
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Christmas Game for Kindergarten - Upper and Lowercase Letter Memory
Build letter recognition skills and add Christmas spirit to your literacy centers with a Printable Letter Matching Christmas Game for Kindergarten.
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Alphabet Coloring Pages - A to Z
Print a set of alphabet coloring pages to boost letter recognition skills.
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Wh Digraph Words With Images
Learn words that contain the 'wh' digraph with these word and picture flashcards.
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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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Dot Painting ABC Worksheets
Build fine motor skills and letter recognition with a fun set of Alphabet Do-a-Dot printables.
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Easter Literacy and Math Centers - Digital Learning Activity
Lost the lesson-planning stress this Easter season with an exciting no-prep digital Easter Literacy and Math center.
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Egg Hunt Pocket Chart - Alphabet Game
Practice letter recognition with this Easter Egg Alphabet Hunt Game.
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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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Directed Word Chains - Worksheets
Manipulate the individual phonemes in words to create new ones with this set of four word chaining worksheets.
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CVC Word Chain Ladders - Worksheets
Build word chains with CVC words using this set of printable phonics worksheets.
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CVC Football - Word Building Center
Build phonemic awareness and spelling skills with a football-themed word-building center.
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Valentine’s Day Printables - CVC Word Task Cards
Practice identifying, spelling, and reading CVC words with a Valentine’s Day Word Scramble activity.
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Groundhog Day Picture Puzzles - CVC, CVCe, and Sight Words
Identify and read CVC, CVCe, and grade-level sight words with a set of fun Groundhog Day themed picture puzzles.
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Alphabet Anchor Charts
Display these lowercase and uppercase letter posters with images that begin with each letter.
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Phonics Vocabulary Poster Pack
A set of 9 phonics vocabulary posters to help explain different terms.
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My Magic E Story - Silent E Words Mini-Book
Practice reading and writing sentences with silent e words with this magic e-mini-book.
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R-Blend Words - Printable Word Cards
Forty-eight R blend vocabulary cards for a word wall.