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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Rhyming Match Worksheets
Identify rhyming words through images with this set of 5 worksheets.
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Initial Letter Coloring Worksheet
Identify the first letter for each picture and then color it.
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Vowel Digraphs Poster Pack
A poster showing words and pictures for various vowel blends.
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Spin and Spell - Months of the Year Worksheet
Spin and spell the months of the year with a printable spelling worksheet for 2nd Grade.
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Days of the Week Spelling Worksheets
Use these Days of the Week Spelling worksheets to help your students practice reading, writing, and spelling the Days of the week.
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Vowel Teams Phonics Journal
Help students remember and record words and examples of different vowel digraphs during your phonics lessons.
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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.
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Spelling Words with -s, -es, and -ies Worksheets
Practice using the inflectional endings -s, -es, and -ies with a pack of English worksheets.
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Decoding Multisyllabic Words - Syllable Type Interactive Activity
Practice identifying syllable types in two- and three-syllable words with this engaging interactive activity.
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I Can Count Sounds! - Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets
Practice phonemic segmentation of words with 2, 3, and 4 phonemes with this set of differentiated phonics worksheets.
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Printable Word List - CVCE Words
Introduce and explore words containing the “magic e” with this extensive list of CVCE words.
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Types of Syllables Anchor Charts
Remind your students about the most common syllable types with this set of classroom display posters.
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Syllable Types and Syllable Division
Divide multisyllabic words into syllables and identify their syllable types with this 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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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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CVCC Word Work Mat
Practice segmenting and spelling simple words with this set of 24 CVCC picture task cards.
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CVC Word Dominoes
Practice decoding and spelling CVC words with this set of 30 dominoes.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Bb'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Roll and Read – Rhyming Words
A fun game for students to practice reading rhyming words.
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Conversation Hearts - Template
Turn this set of 18 conversation heart templates into a variety of teaching resources leading up to Valentine's Day.
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CVC Letters
A sheet of letters to use when making CVC words.
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18 Editing Worksheets - Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation
Eighteen editing worksheets for spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
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Alphabet Puzzles - Upper and Lower Case Letter Recognition
Alphabet puzzles to assist with upper and lower case letter recognition.
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CVC/CCVC/CVCC Word Flashcards
A comprehensive set of flashcards for CVC, CCVC, and CVCC words.
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Connect the Dots Printable Alphabet Worksheet (Robot-Themed)
Download the free connect the dots printable for your students to practice putting letters in alphabetical order.
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Multiple-Meaning Word Puzzles
16 puzzles to use in the classroom when identifying homonyms.
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Building Compound Words - Puzzles
Practice building compound words with this set of 20 puzzles, each with three pieces—two smaller words and the compound word they form.
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Finding Phonemes - A, AW, AU, OR, ORE Digital Learning Activity
Read and spell words using the au, aw, a , or, and ore phonemes with an interactive digital learning activity.
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Days of the Week Activity Mat
Review the order and spelling of the days in a week with a printable Days of the Week Activity Mat!
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Days of the Week Mini Book
Create a Days of the Week Booklet to help your students identify, sequence and spell the days of the week.
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Long Vowel Digraph Writing Worksheet
Learn to encode long vowel digraphs with this set of writing worksheets.
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Beginning Letters - Individual Alphabet Worksheets - BW
A beginning letter worksheet for each letter of the alphabet.