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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Building Words with Suffixes - Literacy Center Cards
Build words using the suffixes -ed, -es, -s, and -ing with a printable word-building pocket chart card pack.
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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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CVC Word Chain Sequencing Cards
Practice building word chains involving CVC words with these word chain sequencing cards.
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OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore "ou" and "ow" words with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Phoneme Segmentation Task Cards
Segment beginning, middle vowel, and final phonemes with this set of 20 CVC word task cards.
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Spelling Long U Words - SCOOT! Task Cards
Explore words containing the “long u” sound with this active classroom game that will get your students moving!
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CVC Phoneme Manipulation Worksheets - Short E
Manipulate the individual phonemes in “short e” words with this set of differentiated CVC words worksheets.
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Word Study List — Final Stable Syllable
Introduce and explore multisyllable words with a list of final stable syllable words.
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Word Study List - Silent Letters
Introduce and explore words containing silent letters with this extensive list of words.
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Word Study List - Long O Words
Introduce and explore words containing graphemes that make the “long o” sound with this extensive list of words.
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Magic E Words - Match-Up Activity
Explore words containing long vowel sounds created by the magic e.
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Greek and Latin Roots Practice Worksheet Bundle
Practice using vocabulary containing Greek roots and Latin roots with 24 weekly root word practice worksheets.
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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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Sight Word SLAP IT! - Third Grade Dolch Words
Play a sight word matching game to enhance reading fluency and knowledge of third grade high frequency words.
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Draw and Write Final E Worksheet Pack
Provide extra practice reading, spelling, and writing final-e words with Draw and Write Worksheets.
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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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High Dollar Words Worksheet-Spelling Center
Develop spelling and mathematics skills simultaneously with a differentiated spelling and money math center activity.
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Just Joking! Cursive Joke Book Practice Worksheets
Trace 10 cringe-worthy jokes in cursive font and rewrite each joke independently in cursive on the lines.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – /or/ Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the /or/ sound.
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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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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - THIS
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “this” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - WENT
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “went” from the Kindergarten-level Dolch sight words list.
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Move It! - Long and Short Vowel 'O' PowerPoint Game
An active PowerPoint game to practice reading and identifying long and short vowel ‘o’ words.
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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 - 'Zz'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Qq'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Parts of a Book Cut and Paste Activity
Identify the various parts of a book with this cut and paste worksheet.
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Sweet Sight Words Worksheet - BECAUSE
Practice reading, writing, and identifying the high-frequency word “because” from the Second Grade Dolch sight words list.
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Four in a Row Game - a_e Words
Practice decoding long 'a' silent final ‘e’ words with this set of 18 word cards and picture game board.
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Word Work Grid and Worksheets - Version 2
A grid with spelling activities and corresponding worksheets that can be used for any set of spelling words.
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Plural Noun Anchor Charts - Posters
Help children grasp the tricky concept of pluralizing nouns by displaying these 8 plural noun anchor chart posters.
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18 Editing Worksheets - Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation
Eighteen editing worksheets for spelling, grammar, and punctuation.