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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Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets - CVC Words
Use this worksheet pack to give students practice at segmenting words into phonemes.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 1)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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Easter Egg Alphabet Hunt
Practise letter recognition with this Easter egg alphabet hunt activity.
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Letter Sound Worksheets - Initial, Medial, and Final Positions
Practise isolating initial, medial, and final letter sounds with a fun set of Letter Sound Worksheets for Year 1.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 2)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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Phonics Sound Wall Display
Build a classroom sound wall to match your phonics programs and literacy progressions with a printable sound wall display.
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Long Vowel Digraph Sort Cut-and-Paste
Reinforce your students' knowledge of long vowel digraphs with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets.
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My Alphabet Book - Printable Alphabet Worksheets
An alphabet booklet to use in the classroom when learning letter recognition.
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Level 4 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 4 decodable readers.
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Phonological Awareness Diagnostic Tool
Basic diagnostic tool to test your students' phonological awareness.
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Spelling CVC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CVC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
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Read, Find and Colour – CVC Words
Consolidate your students' decoding skills with this set of search and find worksheets.
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Level 1 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 1 decodable readers.
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CVC Word Building Activity
Practise building CVC words with this 25 slide interactive activity.
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Level 3 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 3 decodable readers
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Decodable Sound Button Flashcards – Set 1
A set of over 100 decodable sound button flashcards.
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Busy Binder - Morning Work Pages for Kindergarten
Review daily calendar, maths, literacy, and fine motor skills with a printable morning work pages for kindergarten!
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Level 5 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 5 decodable readers.
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CVC/CCVC/CVCC Word Flashcards
A comprehensive set of flashcards for CVC, CCVC, and CVCC words.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'e' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'e' sound.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'i' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'i' sound.
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Dolch Words Card Game – Classroom Game
A card game for dolch sight words.
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Ck Digraph Lesson Resource Pack
Introduce students to the ck digraph with this set of teaching slides and mini activity book.
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Level 6 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 6 decodable readers.
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OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore words containing ‘ow’ and ‘ou’ with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Initial Sound Peg Cards (Version 1)
An initial sound and fine motor activity for the early years classroom.
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Digraph Handwriting - Worksheets
24 digraph worksheets that focus on handwriting and vocabulary activities.
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CVC Word Chain Task Cards
Manipulate the individual phonemes in CVC words to create new ones with this set of differentiated task cards.
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SATPIN Matching Activity - Frog and Lily Pads
A SATPIN matching activity using lilly pads.
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Alphabet Letter Match
A fun match-up activity to consolidate your students' knowledge of uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Suffix Word Building Activity
Build words using the suffixes -ed, -es, -s, and -ing with a printable word-building pocket chart card pack.
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CVC Word Chain Ladders - Worksheets
Build word chains with CVC words using this set of printable phonics worksheets.