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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Sight Word Dominoes - Dolch Pre-Primer
Improve identifying high-frequency words by sight with this set of 40 Dolch Pre-Primer sight word dominoes.
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Which Word? CVC Decoding Worksheets
A set of 5 worksheets for students to practice segmenting and blending common CVC words.
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Sight Word Dominoes - Dolch 1st Grade
Improve identifying high-frequency words by sight with this set of 40 Dolch First Grade sight word dominoes.
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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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Color by Sight Words - 7 Words - Monkey
A fun coloring activity to use when working with sight words.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SO
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “so” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SAY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “say” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SAW
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “saw” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - THAT
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “that” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - RIDE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “ride” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - SHE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “she” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Read Along Pocket Chart Cards – Black History Month
Use this set of Black History Month text and image pocket chart cards for reading and history lessons.
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Color by Sight Words - 6 Words - Chicken
A fun coloring activity to use when working with sight words.
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Long and Short Vowel Sounds Dominoes
Distinguish between long and short vowel sounds with this set of 28 dominoes.
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Alphabet Display Poster
A bright and colorful poster to display when introducing the letters of the alphabet.
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Curious Creature Create-a-Book-Cover Template
A template to help students create a curious creature book cover.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - ON
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “on” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - OUT
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “out” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - NOW
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “now” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - NEW
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “new” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - PRETTY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “pretty” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - RAN
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “ran” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - HAVE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “have” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - THEY
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “they” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - DID
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “did” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - GOOD
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “good” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - FOUR
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “four” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - CAME
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “came” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - EAT
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “eat” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - DO
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “do” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - BUT
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “but” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - ATE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “ate” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.