Sign up for our monthly newsletter, and we'll keep you posted as we add new free resources!

  • Trigraphs Skill Explainer

Build-a-Word: Trigraphs

Video thumbnail for Build-a-Word: Spelling with Trigraphs
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 build-a-word strategy with trigraphs. The word is hatch. The egg will hatch soon. Hatch. Let's identify the phonemes in that word ... /h/, /ă/, /tch/. Three. Let's try it here /h/, /ă/, /tch/. Three. Which grapheme represents that /h/ sound? The 'h'. Which grapheme represents that /ă/?" ... 'a'. And what about that final phoneme there, /tch/ ... which grapheme represents that sound? It has to be 't', 'c', 'h' because after a short vowel sound, the /tch/ is represented by the letters 't', 'c', 'h'. That's one grapheme. Let's spell the word ... 'h', 'a', 't', 'c', 'h' ...  Hatch.

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; the AFT; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; and three anonymous donors.