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!
- Free Plan
Vowel Teams Diphthong Worksheets
Practice diphthongs with this set of fun and engaging worksheets.
- Free Plan
Months of the Year Printable Activity Book
Create months of the year booklets to help your students identify, sequence and spell the months in a year.
- Plus Plan
Alphabet Matching Caterpillar Activity
A vibrant and fun activity to teach lowercase and uppercase to young children.
- Free Plan
Medial L Words - List & Flashcards
Practice reading and articulating Medial L words with a list of 50 words and accompanying illustrated flash cards.
- Free Plan
Roll and Read – Sight Words – Kindergarten
A fun game for students to practice reading sight words.
- Free Plan
Consonant Digraph Cut-and-Paste Worksheets
Reinforce your students' knowledge of consonant digraphs with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets.
- Free Plan
My Diphthong Cheat Sheet
Help students learn all about diphthong vowel teams with this handy diphthong student reference sheet.
- Plus Plan
Blending Phonemes Fluency Strips
Develop students’ ability to blend phonemes in common words with this comprehensive set of phoneme blending fluency strips.
- Free Plan
Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Qq'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
- Free Plan
Science of Reading Decoding Strategy Bookmarks and Poster
Help students succeed in reading fluency with this free printable bookmark and poster set of strategies for decoding unknown words.
- Free Plan
Digraph Coding Robot Mat
Practice identifying digraphs with the help of a coding robot and mat.
- Free Plan
OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore "ou" and "ow" words with this set of differentiated word searches.
- Free Plan
Rhyming Word Cards
Reinforce students' knowledge of rhyming words with this set of 30 picture cards.
- Free Plan
Dolch Sight Word Flash Cards
Practice the first 100 Dolch Sight Words with a deck of sight word flash cards.
- Free Plan
Sign Language Alphabet Poster
Display this poster in your classroom as a reminder of how to represent the letters of the alphabet when spelling words in ASL (American Sign Language).
- Free Plan
Color by Letter (c, k, e, h, r) - Dog
Use this free printable color by letter activity with students when practicing letter recognition for the letters c, k, e, h, and r.
- Free Plan
Alphabet Letter Match
A fun match-up activity to consolidate your students' knowledge of uppercase and lowercase letters.
- Free Plan
Segmenting and Blending Mats
A set of beautifully designed templates for students to practice blending and segmenting words.
- Plus Plan
Compound Words - Worksheet Pack
Practice using compound words in sentences with. a pair of printable compound word worksheets for older students.
- Plus Plan
EE, EA and EY Vowel Team Lesson Resource Pack
Introduce students to EE, EA and EY vowel digraphs with this set of teaching slides and mini activity book.
- Free Plan
Diphthongs Maze Worksheet
Excite your students to practice their knowledge of diphthongs with this fun clue-based maze diphthong worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Auto-Fill Customizable Spelling Worksheets
Save time making custom spelling lists and spelling practice worksheets with an editable auto-fill spelling worksheet pack.
- Free Plan
Th Word List and Digraph Flashcards
Practice reading and spelling words with the Digraph TH with a list of 50 words and accompanying illustrated flash cards.
- Plus Plan
Inflectional Endings - Spelling with Suffixes Worksheets
Spell words with the inflectional endings -ed, -ing, -s, -es and -ies with a pack of printable practice worksheets covering inflected endings.
- Free Plan
Plural Nouns Chart - Printable Plural Rules Guide
Give your students a reference guide to help them remember all of the different plural rules.
- Free Plan
What's Missing? - Alphabet Worksheet
A set of worksheets to practice writing the letters of the alphabet in order.
- Plus Plan
Four in a Row Game - Manipulating Sounds
Create new words by changing phonemes with 30 phoneme manipulation cards and gameboard set.
- Free Plan
In My Classroom Concept Book
A printable concept book for children to discuss things around their classroom.
- Free Plan
Initial Letter Coloring Worksheet
Identify the first letter for each picture and then color it.
- Plus Plan
Vowel Digraphs Poster Pack
A poster showing words and pictures for various vowel blends.
- Free Plan
Phoneme Segmentation Task Cards
Segment beginning, middle vowel, and final phonemes with this set of 20 CVC word task cards.
- Plus Plan
Printable Word List - CVCE Words
Introduce and explore words containing the “magic e” with this extensive list of CVCE words.