2. When to Teach Consonant Digraphs

Once students can identify consonant and short vowel sounds, and can blend consonant-vowel-consonant words with short vowel sounds, we can introduce digraphs. 

Here’s a reminder of where you are on our phonics continuum — what you have taught and what’s coming up. This is not the only way to do things, and many programs will teach skills in a different order. That’s OK, as long as students learn all the skills.

Grade Level

At the end of the kindergarten, some students may be ready to learn digraphs, but only if they have solid mastery of sound-letter correspondences and a grasp of the closed-syllable pattern. We generally begin teaching digraphs in first grade.

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

We continue to work with digraphs in both one-syllable and multisyllabic words as students progress through the grades. 

Prerequisite Skills

Before learning digraphs, students need to be able to:

• Identify consonant and short vowel sounds
• Decode consonant-vowel-consonant words with short vowel sounds