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 Google Interactive - Letter I
Help students identify, write, and learning the sound of letter I with an interactive activity.
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Independence Day ABC Order Worksheet
Support your students in reviewing the vocabulary and concepts surrounding the Independence Day holiday with this fun ABC Order Worksheet.
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Alphabet Interactive - Letter K
Add hands-on literacy activites to your reading centers to help students identify, write, and learning the sound of letter K.
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Alphabet Interactive - Letter L
Bring technology into your guided reading lessons, and learn the sounds of L with a Google Interactive activity.
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Alphabet Google Interactive - Letter J
Add digital activities to your kindergarten literacy centers to aid students in learning the letter J.
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Alphabet Google Interactive - Letter H
Add hands-on literacy activites to your reading centers to help students identify, write, and learning the sound of letter H.
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Columbus Day ABC Sort
Review the vocabulary and concepts surrounding the Columbus Day holiday with this fun ABC Order Worksheet.
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ASL Alphabet Line — Printable Cursive and Print Classroom Decor
Print a set of 26 ASL alphabet posters for the classroom with cursive and print letters to help your students with letter formation and handwriting.
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Constitution Day Worksheet - ABC Order
Support your students in reviewing the vocabulary and concepts surrounding Constitution Day with this worksheet.
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Memorial Day ABC Sort
Review terms surrounding Memorial Day with an alphabetical order worksheet.
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Alphabet Google Interactive - Letter F
Use a Google Slides Interactive Activity to aid students in learning the letter F.
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Alphabet Google Interactive – Letter E
Build letter recognition skills and phonemic awareness with a Letter E Google Slides Interactive Activity.
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Alphabet Google Interactive — Letter D
Dive into learning the letter D with a Google Interactive Activity.
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Alphabet Google Interactive — Letter C
Identify, build, and learn the sounds of the letter C with a Google Slides Interactive Activity.
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Alphabet Google Interactive — Letter B
Use a Google Slides Interactive Activity to aid students in learning the letter B.
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Alphabet Google Interactive — Letter A
Engage learners with an innovative approach to learning the Letter A with a Google Slides Interactive Activity.
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Google Interactive S-Blends Activity
Help your readers practice their S-blend skills with fun, interactive Google Slides word-building activities.
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Google Interactive R-Blends Activity
Decode and spell r-blend words with phonemes gr, tr, br, cr, dr, pr, and fr.
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CVCC Word Study Worksheet Pack
Provide extra practice reading, spelling, and writing CVCC words with a set of 30 CVCC Word Study Practice Worksheets.
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Short and Long Vowel Sounds Sorting Center
Distinguish between long and short vowel sounds with a short and long vowel sorting center activity.
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Google Interactive L-Blends Word Building Activity
Engage young readers to tackle L-blend words with an engaging and inviting Google Interactive activity.
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Google Interactive R-Controlled Vowel Word Building Activity
Build an engaging literacy center or station activity around r-controlled vowels with a Google Slides Interactive Activity.
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Google Interactive CVCC Word Building Activity
Practice building, reading, and writing words with consonants, vowels, blends, and digraphs while spelling CVCC words.
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R-Controlled Vowel Clip Cards-Digital and Print
Build an engaging literacy center or station activity around r-controlled vowels with these digital and/or printable r-controlled vowel clip cards.
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Google Interactive R-Blends Sort and Write Activity
Bring technology into your guided reading lessons, and achieve mastery of r-blend words with a fun, pirate-themed learning activity.
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Google Interactive Sight Word Study-Kindergarten Dolch Words
Read, write, identify, and build all 52 Dolch kindergarten sight words in an interactive Google Slides presentation.
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Google Interactive Initial S-Blends Activity
Decode and segment words by identifying the s-blend words with phonemes sp, sl, sm, sn, sc, st.
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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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Differentiating Long and Short Vowels - Interactive PowerPoint
Practice differentiating between long and short vowel sounds with this interactive PowerPoint.
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I Have, Who Has? Game - Dolch PrePrimer Sight Words
Practice listening to and reading high-frequency words with this set of 41 “I Have, Who Has” Pre-K Dolch sight word game cards.
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I Have, Who Has? Game - Dolch Primer Sight Words
Practice listening to and reading high-frequency words with this set of 53 “I Have, Who Has” Kindergarten Dolch sight word game cards.
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First Grade Dolch Words - I Have, Who Has? Game
Practice listening to and reading high-frequency words with this set of 42 “I Have, Who Has?” 1st Grade Dolch sight word game cards.