Phonics Teaching Resources
Make teaching phonics easy with printable phonics worksheets, activities, games and more designed for primary teachers.
This collection of Australian 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 recognising 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 recognise 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 in Primary School
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 to Remember
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 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 foundation, year 1 and even year 2 getting a handle on all phonics elements!
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Letter Craft Activity - 'I' is For Insect (Version 1)
An activity to assist young students with letter recognition, phonemic awareness and fine motor development.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Yy'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Mm'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Gg'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Letter Sounds Worksheet – Letter E
Practise beginning letter sounds with this colouring in worksheet.
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Letter Sounds Worksheet – Letter A
Practise beginning letter sounds with this colouring in worksheet.
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A Whale's Tale - Simple Rhyming Poetry Poster
A simple rhyming poem perfect for developing knowledge of phonics and a love of reading and writing poetry.
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Word Morph Active Game
An active game that allows students to test and build their phonetic knowledge.
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‘You’ Sight Word Little Book
A little book with activities for the word ‘you’.
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A Rhyme a Dozen - Matching Game
A concentration style card game that can be used to consolidate students' knowledge of rhyming words.
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Sight Word BINGO (Fry Word List)
A set of 25 BINGO cards to practise reading the first 100 words on the Fry Sight Word List.
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Segmenting and Blending Mats
A set of beautifully designed templates for students to practise blending and segmenting words.
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Letter Sounds Worksheet – Lowercase e
Practise beginning letter sounds with this colouring in worksheet.
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B and D letter Confusion Posters
Posters highlighting the differences between b and d letterforms.
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Phonemes and Their Graphemes - PowerPoint
A 56 slide PowerPoint presentation on phonemes and their graphemes.
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Frog Fun Game - Beginning, Middle and Ending sounds
Game cards and instructions for a frog-themed CVC word combination game.
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Dolch Sight Word Bingo – Grade 1
Sixteen different bingo cards using the Grade 1 Dolch Sight Words.
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Ninja Race Phonics Game
A fun, engaging board game to consolidate students' understanding of digraphs and rhyme.
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Dolch Sight Word Bingo – Primer
Sixteen different bingo cards using the Primer Dolch Sight Words.
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Dolch Sight Word Bingo – Pre-Primer
Sixteen different bingo cards using the Pre-Primer Dolch Sight Words.
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A-Z Picture Flashcards (Upper Case)
A set of A-Z flash cards with upper case letters and matching pictures.
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Word Family Slide Activity
A set of 12 word families are used to create this fun individual or small group activity using planes.
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Kn, Ph & Wr Digraph Flashcards
Seventeen flashcards showing kn, ph and wr digraph words and pictures.
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Letter Oo - Alphabet Worksheet
An activity worksheet to use in the classroom when learning about phonics and the letter O.
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Letter Mm - Alphabet Worksheet
An activity worksheet to use in the classroom when learning about phonics and the letter M.
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Letter Ff - Alphabet Worksheet
An activity worksheet to use in the classroom when learning about phonics and the letter F.
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Letter Ee - Alphabet Worksheet
An activity worksheet to use in the classroom when learning about phonics and the letter E.
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Sound Families Word Wall
A set of 45 word wall cards featuring common sound families.
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L-Blends Blending Flashcards
Practise blending l-blends with this set of blending l word cards.
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R-Blends Blending Flashcards
Practise blending r-blends with this set of blending r word cards.
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Consonant Digraph WR Interactive
Engage students in practising their learning around the consonant digraph of ‘wr’ with this fun building site-themed interactive activity.
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Roll and Read Diphthong Activity
Explore different diphthongs with this fun gamified diphthong activity.