phonics Archives - Page 3 of 3

ch, wh, sh, Teaching Trick Digraphs

I have created some hints within the letter shapes to help remind the students of words that make the same digraph sound.

Creative Picture Embedded Hints with the Letter Shapes

Digraphs might be more complex to learn than blends, especially with all the tricky sounds, silent letters, and spelling rules. I have hidden some hints within the letter shapes to help remind the students of words that make the same sound as the digraph. Example ch – one of the sounds of ch is in chomp and chicken. The letter c has teeth to chomp or chew on the chicken leg, which is very similar to the h shape.

This is the first sound of ch, as in chicken. Some kids have it mixed up with the sound /tr/. I was very surprised by this until they explained that /ch/ is for the train picture. (oops!) Some programs have a Choo-choo train for /ch/ sound and it was confusing the emergent readers.

There are many more clever hiding pictures with the digraphs and trigraphs in this set. Including the 3 different sounds for the ch.

These grapheme images incorporate the letter shapes with embedded images to help students recall the sounds that they make. Pictures aid phonemic sound recall and link to memory pathways.

3 different sounds of ch ch, k, sh:

ch – 1 st sound ch, Letter c has teeth to chew the chicken on the letter h.

ch – 2nd sound k, Christmas tree image, letter c is a sack of gifts and letter h on
the tall tree has the “sh” silent hand.

ch – 3rd sound /sh/ chef, letter c shape is uncovering the food. (French Word Origins)

3 different sounds of gh:

gh – Ghost images laughing, thinking, and shhhh hand. (3 sounds on one card)

gh – Gh sleeping and coughing with h shhhh hand.

Other digraphs

ck – Duck image with bubbles on letter c and letter k has duck feet

th – Letter t is sticking a tongue out at the thumb image on letter h.

ph – Letter p using a phone and h looks like a phone.

wr – Wrench image with silent w.

tr – Covered with train tracks and a train on letter t.

and much more……

Check out the whole set on my Teachers Pay Teachers page Pure Joy Teaching

The cards can be printed with a word list on the back. Some cards have very helpful spelling tips too. Color-coded to help highlight the digraph or trigraph.

Keep watching this space, I am working on a card game to help reinforce some of these tricky sounds and teach some spelling words at the same time.

These helpful cards are a lot like my first set for R-controlled phonics.

R-Controlled Clipcards Trigraphs

Have Pure Joy Teaching

CVC builder Hot dogs dramatic play easy booklet

VC included. Vowel Consonant and CVC is very common, and VC is sometimes overlooked. The capital /I/ can be very tricky for some emergent readers. They learn that the capital I, says it’s name when it is on its own, sometimes when they see it next to another letter, like at the beginning of a sentence, it can create some confusion. ( The capital letters A and I, can be used to make words like: In, It, If, An, At.

Practice building CVC and VC words, quick set-up, and super fun

This booklet-style setup creates an easy and organized way to play and store this fun CVC and VC resource for students and teachers. Dramatic play with educational games has been a huge hit in my classroom. Kids love to play and they are learning at the same time.

Customize to Fit Your Needs

The back page is larger and has the barbecue grill image on it. This creates a fun playing surface to lay out all the vowel hotdogs on.

The top half is left open with enough space to attach a small snack-size recloseable bag. This is a great option for storing all the pieces that go with this dramatic games-style teaching resource. Sight word condiments and vowel hotdogs.

The bottom half of this resource can be printed double-sided and attached to the grill with rings or a binding machine. This lays out nicely and removes some of the reversal issues.

VC Vowel Consonant – Closed Syllable Pattern

VC included. CVC is very common, and VC is sometimes overlooked. The capital /I/ can be very tricky for some emergent readers. Letter I, and A, are examples of an open syllable vowel.

They learn that the capital I, says it’s name when it is on its own, sometimes when they see it next to another letter, like at the beginning of a sentence, it can create some confusion. ( The capital letters A and I, can be used to make words like: In, It, If, An, At. Now they changed into closed syllable vowels.

Sight Words

Sight words – Tricky non-decodable words are included: said, of, the, his, all, is, do, was, are, what, as, have, too.

The sight words are grouped by color to make teaching a little easier. All the yellow mustard words have the letter s that makes the /z/ sound: his, is, was, as, has. ( I call these the sleeping snake words. He falls asleep and snores zzz…. sometimes)

R-Controlled

All of the consonant buns should make decodable words. The letter r, is not included as an ending letter. This is not the time to teach bossy r-controlled words. This is purely for early sound-letter decoding.

Tricky – Y

The letter y, is only in the first position making the correct sound. This is not the time to teach digraphs ay, ey, oy, uy, gym, or eye. All those fun words will come later. As well as words ending with w, aw, ow, ew, should be taught later.

Here is a fun game for short o sounds with /wa/Candyland-style Fruitland.

The CVC Hot Dog builder can be found on my TPT site.

You may also like the CVC sandwich builder or the matching blends. The PB&J’s progress to the digraphs and vowel teams.

Tips for setting up the grill.

Print the grill back page on full-sized 8.5×11 paper.

Print the hot dog vowels, single-sided, 2 to a page.

Print the Bun Consonants, double-sided, 2 to a page.
Use a piece of cardstock or scrap of laminated paper inside of the sandwich bag to make it ridged and strong enough to punch holes through.

Snack-sized reclosable bag attached with a binding machine. Pure Joy Teaching

This booklet was created with the smaller half-page grill, attached on the long side. But it could be set up with a larger full-page-sized grill. Very easy to customize to your classroom needs.

CVC Hot dog word builder, consonant buns. © Pure Joy Teaching 2023

Pure Joy Teaching © Hot Dog CVC VC builder — © Pure Joy Teaching CVC VC word builder hot dogs

CVC Uno game for Emergent Readers

Remember always to have – Pure Joy Teaching.

R-Controlled Trigraphs

Teaching the hardest bossy-r lesson just became easier.

R controlled Trigraphs Mnemonic Bossy r Booklet, spelling help for sounds air, ear,

Mnemonic pictures are a great way to help teach sound sorting for the various tricky spellings of the five bossy r trigraphs.

air, ear, oar, er, r . These 5 sounds can be spelled in lots of ways.

This booklet has 35 Mnemonic pictures for the vowels and bossy r – to help create a visual picture that can remind the student how the word is spelled.

Find this item here on Teachers Pay Teachers

Bind these pages together with a binding machine, rings, or slip cards into an old photo brag book for a durable teaching resource.

Print as single pages and slip them into the photo brag book.

Two-hole punch with rings for side-by-side readers.

Word lists on the cards are dual colors with the selected trigraph highlighted in red ink for easy visual reference.

This is a great way to teach homophones, with all the different spellings of the r sounds – stare, stair, fare, fair.

Now includes poster size.