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All About Teaching Reading & Writing
Taxonomy
Skill Explainer

3.1 Prepare for Consonant Digraphs Instruction

Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer

Lisa Glickman

The Simple View of Reading

Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Assessment

The process of measuring students' progress and providing information to help guide instruction

(active)
Word Recognition

The ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it

Phonological Awareness

A group of skills that enable you to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words

Articulation

Syllables

Onset-Rime

Phonemic Awareness

(active)
Phonics

A method for teaching children the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters so they can learn to decode and encode

Sound-Letter Correspondence

(active)Phonics Patterns

Common letter combinations found in words.

Short Vowels Skill Explainer
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
Blends Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer

Coming soon.

    Magic 'e' Skill Explainer
    Soft 'c' and Soft 'g' Skill Explainer

    Coming soon.

      R-Controlled Vowels Skill Explainer

      Coming soon.

        Vowel Teams and Dipthongs Skill Explainer

        Coming soon.

          '-tch' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          '-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          Consonant '-le' Skill Explainer

          Coming soon.

            Schwa Skill Explainer

            Coming soon.

              Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

              High-frequency words that have a part of their spelling that has to be memorized

              Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

              Multisyllable Words

              Words that have more than one word part

              Prefixes

              How to add meaningful beginnings to words

              Suffixes

              How to add meaningful endings to words

              Language Comprehension

              The ability to understand the meaning of spoken words

              Reading Comprehension

              The ability to understand the meaning of printed text

              Text Considerations

              Characteristics of a text that impact the ease or difficulty of comprehension.

              Strategies and Activities

              How a reader approaches a specific text, depending on their purpose for reading

              Reader’s Skill and Knowledge

              The skills and knowledge a reader brings to the reading task that are necessary for comprehension

              Sociocultural Context

              Elements in a classroom that affect how well a child learns to read

              Fluency

              The ability to read accurately with automaticity and expression

              Fluency: Accuracy, then Automaticity

              Reading or decoding words correctly (accuracy) and reading at an appropriate rate (automaticity)

              Accuracy, then Automaticity Skill Explainer

              Coming soon.

                Fluency: Expressive Text Reading

                Reading characterized by accuracy with automaticity and expression

                Expressive Text Reading Skill Explainer

                Coming soon.

                  Writing

                  The act of putting thoughts into print using transcription and composition skills

                  Features of Structured Literacy

                  A systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading based on research

                  Our instruction here should go from simple to complex.

                  • We typically begin with ‘ch’ and ‘sh’ because there are many words that students can read and spell with those digraphs. Next we move to ‘th,’ which is also common in words that students can read and spell but is a bit trickier because it makes both a voiced and unvoiced sound.
                  • We teach ‘wh’ and ‘ph’ later on in the sequence because there are not many words this early in the sequence with those digraphs that students can read and spell.
                  • We begin having students read one-syllable words with digraphs before moving to multisyllabic words. 

                  Select the Digraph for Focus

                  When first introducing digraphs, we typically introduce one at a time. We teach lessons for ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘th’ first because there are many words that can be read and spelled with these digraphs and the consonants and vowel sounds that students have been taught. 

                  ‘Ph’ and ‘wh’ are not generally taught early in the sequence because there are very few words that students can decode with those digraphs (graph, when, whiz). At this point in the continuum, we teach the sounds for ‘wh’ and ‘ph’ and can include them in flash card warm up, but we do not teach full lessons for reading and spelling words with these digraphs.

                  In first and second grade we can focus more on the digraphs ‘wh’ and ‘ph’ as they appear more  frequently in question words that students see in text, and hear in words like phonics, photo, and phone

                  In first grade, choose one digraph to focus on at a time. If working with older students, depending on their ability you can teach multiple digraphs together. 

                  Consider Teaching Strategies to Use in Your Lesson

                  The Reading Universe lesson plans integrate specific teaching strategies for teaching children to spell and read words and sentences with consonant digraphs, including flash cards, and the roller coaster and build-a-word strategies. We use a combination of these strategies as we have students practice sounds, words in isolation, phrases, and sentences. 

                  Here is an example of how to use the build-a-word strategy to spell words with digraphs.

                  Video thumbnail for Build-a-Word: Digraphs
                  Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
                  Hide Video Transcript Show Video Transcript

                  Antonio Fierro: Let's use the builder word strategy with digraphs. The word is ship ... ship. I saw a ship out in the ocean ... ship. Right? Now you say it. Right ... ship. Let's see how many phonemes are in the word ship ... /sh/, /ĭ/, /p/. Oh, good, three. So we'll have three lines ... /sh/, /ĭ/, /p/. What's a grapheme that represents that /sh/? Mmmm, 'sh'. Oh, and don't forget, this is my digraph. I have two letters coming together to make one sound, right? My vowel ... /sh/, /ĭ/ ... What graphene? 'i'. And the final phoneme is /p/. What about the grapheme? 'p'. Let's write it out ... ship. Ship.

                  Gather the Materials You Will Need

                  Here are some materials you might need for your lessons, including numerous sets of flash cards that you can download.

                  To begin, here is a list of words, phrases and sentences with digraphs that you can use during your lesson planning.

                  Consonant Digraphs: List of Words, Phrases, and Sentences for Lesson Planning

                  Our word lists can help you plan for teaching digraphs. Use them in your reading, spelling, and fluency lessons and activities.

                  These letter flash cards with pictures help students remember the sound that the digraphs represent.

                  Digraphs Flash Cards With Pictures (2x4)

                  Print these 2x4 letter flash cards with pictures to use with small groups.

                  Digraphs Flash Cards With Pictures (5x7)

                  Use these 5x7 flash cards during your warm-up to have students practice digraphs.

                  Once students are closer to automaticity, you can replace the card with the picture with the card that only has the digraph letters like these below.

                  Digraphs Flash Cards Without Pictures (2x4)

                  Print these 2x4 letter flash cards without pictures to help students practice the sounds for the digraphs 'ch', 'sh', 'th', 'wh', 'ph', and '-ck'.

                  Digraphs Flash Cards Without Pictures (5x7)

                  Print these 5x7 letter flash cards without pictures to help students practice the sounds for the digraphs 'ch', 'sh', 'th', 'wh', 'ph', and '-ck'.

                  Our resource hub has word lists, read sheets, and decodables for practicing digraphs.

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                  Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.