What are the 7 digraphs?
- sh - as in she or wish.
- kn - as in know or knock.
- ch - as in chair or chat.
- ph - as in phone or phonics.
- wr - as in wrench or wreck.
- ck - as in tick or pluck.
- ss - as in chess or class.
- tch - as in watch or witch.
A blend is two consonants together that each make a sound. For example, in the word "s to p" the /s/ and the /t/ each make a sound. A blend is different than a digraph, which has two letters but only one sound. In the word "shop" - the /sh/ makes only one sound.
Our scope and sequence features digraphs as the third stage of learning, and contains 8 consonant digraphs: CH, CK, NG, PH, QU, SH, TH, and WH.
A digraph is made up of two letters that work together to make one unique sound. When I'm teaching about digraphs, I like to call digraphs “best friends” – a pair of letters that love to work together!
The terms digraph and diphthong are common terms in the reading world. At Readsters' workshops on spelling or phonics, we find that many people are confused about the difference between the two terms. The clear difference is that digraphs are letters and diphthongs are sounds.
A digraph is two letters that make one sound.
The digraph can be made up of vowels or consonants. A trigraph is a single sound that is represented by three letters. Consonant digraphs are taught in Reception.
A digraph in the English language is a group of two successive letters that represents a single sound or phoneme. Common vowel digraphs include ai (rain), ay (day), ea (teach), ea (bread), ea (break), ee (free), ei (eight), ey (key), ie (piece), oa (road), oo (book), oo (room), ow (slow), and ue (true).
Part of those 44 sounds include the "blends." Blends are 2 or 3 consonants combined to form a distinct sound such as: bl cl, fl, gl, pl, br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, sk, sl, sp, st, sw, spr, cr, str.
Likewise, TH , ER , ON , and AN are the most common pairs of letters (termed bigrams or digraphs), and SS , EE , TT , and FF are the most common repeats. The nonsense phrase "ETAOIN SHRDLU" represents the 12 most frequent letters in typical English language text.
Usually, common consonant digraphs like sh and ch are taught first because students encounter many words with these graphemes in their early years. Sometimes trigraphs are taught along with or just after digraphs since they represent the same sound. After this, you'll see l-blends, r-blends, and s-blends taught.
Should you teach blends or digraphs first?
What order should blends and digraphs be taught? While you should find the best method for YOUR students, it is recommended that blends come prior to digraphs. When learning about consonant blends, students are also learning to recognize patterns in words.
Phoneme sounds like phonics, which is the method of teaching people how to correlate sounds with letters. Grapheme has the word graph in it. Graphemes are symbols, just like how graphs are also visual representations of information. Digraphs are two-letter Graphemes.

CH in the word “chair” and PH in the word “phone” are both examples of digraphs. Blends, on the other hand, are two or more consonants that BLEND together but each sound can still be heard. For instance, the words “skirt” and “clock” start with the blends SK and CL.
When two letters come together to make one sound, they are called a digraph.
A digraph is two letters that combine together to correspond to one sound (phoneme). Examples of consonant digraphs are 'ch, sh, th, ng'. Examples of vowel digraphs are 'ea, oa, oe, ie, ue, ar, er, ir, or, ur '.
- What Is an English Diphthong?
- 1. / aʊ/ as in Town.
- 2. / aɪ/ as in Light.
- 3. / eɪ/ as in Play.
- 4. / eə/ as in Pair.
- 5. / ɪə/ as in Deer.
- 6. / oʊ/ as in Slow.
- 7. / ɔɪ/ as in Toy.
Vowel digraphs
Sometimes, two vowels work together to form a new sound. This is called a diphthong. Examples include cloud and boil.
A diphthong is a combination of two vowels that make a single sound. E.g., oo, oi au, ui. Consonant blends are two or three consonants that are pronounced in their own phonetic sound. When consonant blends are pronounced, each sound is blurred for smooth speech.
A digraph is two letters combined to make a single sound in written or spoken English. Digraphs can consist of consonants and vowels.
Other common consonant digraphs are sh, ch, wh, th, ck. A blend contains two or three consonants that each make their own sound but blend together to make syllables and words: in the word sleep, the letters s and l form sl. Other common blends are st, fl, sk, and gr.
What are 5 most common digraphs?
The most common consonant digraphs are ch-, sh-, th-, ph- and wh-.
There are five split digraphs; a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e and u-e. These are first taught in years 1 and 2 as part of the phonics curriculum. You're first taught the basic sounds which letters in our alphabet make; c-a-t, for example.
A digraph is a combination of two letters that work together to spell a single sound. The five most common consonant digraphs are ch-, sh-, th-, ph-, and wh-.
Examples of clusters with 3 consonant sounds are /str/ in 'string', /sks/ in 'tasks' and the /kst/ in 'sixty'. Examples of clusters with 4 consonant sounds in a row are /ksts/ in 'texts' and /mpst/ in 'glimpsed'.
The most common beginning consonant blends include: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fr, tr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sl, sm, sp and st. Blends can also occur at the end of words as in the word “last”. There are also blends which contain three consonants.
- scram.
- scrap.
- scream.
- script.
- scrape.
- So I developed some helpful digraph mnemonics for:
- TH – A picture of a tongue sticking out; I always tell my learners, “This is the only time it's okay to stick your tongue out.”
- SH – “Shhh! ...
- CH – A train says “ch-ch-ch-ch”
Lesson Appropriate for Kindergarten or Grade 1
Many students in kindergarten are ready to learn consonant digraphs, and all typically developing children should be able to read and spell words with consonant digraphs in first grade.
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Activities to teach digraphs ch, ck, wh
- Cut and Match.
- Draw the Words.
- Draw and Match.
- Un-Jumble the Words.
- Choose the Correct Spelling.
- Find the Words.
- Word Hunt.
- Word Triangles.
The most common digraphs that are typically introduced first include sh, th, ch, and wh. The most common beginning blends that are typically introduced to students first include bl, br, cl, br, dr, fr, tr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sl, sm, sp, and st.
What letter sounds should be taught first?
Letters that occur frequently in simple words (e.g., a, m, t) are taught first. Letters that look similar and have similar sounds (b and d) are separated in the instructional sequence to avoid confusion. Short vowels are taught before long vowels.
It is also a good idea to begin instruction in sound-letter relationships by choosing consonants such as f, m, n, r, and s, whose sounds can be pronounced in isolation with the least distortion. Stop sounds at the beginning or middle of words are harder for children to blend than are continuous sounds.
Between the ages of 5 and 6, the prior phonological skills are expanded and more finely tuned. Children will be able to blend and segment words that have 4 sounds, specifically with consonant blends (e.g., hand). Children will be able to identify the first and last sounds in a word.
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This includes words such as:
- -ff) puff.
- -ll) fill.
- -ss) kiss.
- -zz) buzz.
A consonant cluster is when two consonants are positioned together. They can appear at the start of a word, for example: st in stay. fr in friend. cr in croak.
Despite there being just 26 letters in the English language there are approximately 44 unique sounds, also known as phonemes. The 44 sounds help distinguish one word or meaning from another. Various letters and letter combinations known as graphemes are used to represent the sounds.
A digraph is a phoneme (single sound) that is made up of two letters. The digraph above, /oa/, is a vowel digraph, because it is made up of two vowels. The /ch/ in chip is a consonant digraph, where the two letters make up one single phoneme.
Common consonant digraphs include “sh”, “ch”, and “th”. Some digraphs are found at both the beginning and the end of a word. Others are strictly initial consonant digraphs, like “kn”, or final consonant digraphs, like “-ck”.
Usually, common consonant digraphs like sh and ch are taught first because students encounter many words with these graphemes in their early years. Sometimes trigraphs are taught along with or just after digraphs since they represent the same sound. After this, you'll see l-blends, r-blends, and s-blends taught.
Vowel digraphs
In a vowel digraph, two vowels are side by side. The first vowel is long and says its name. The second vowel is silent, as in boat, paint, and beach. Sometimes, two vowels work together to form a new sound.
What is a 4 letter digraph called?
Quadgraph – A quadgraph is a four-letter grapheme that represents one phoneme/sound. For example, the 'eigh' representing the /ay/ sound in the word eight is a quadgraph. Schwa – Schwa is when a vowel phoneme/sound in a word is not stressed.
A consonant digraph is a combination of consonants that represent one sound. The letter “h” appears in a few consonant digraphs: “ch”, “gh”, “ph”, “th,” “sh”, and “wh”.