What Is a Consonant Digraph

What Is a Consonant Digraph

Consonant digraphs include ch, ck, gh, kn, mb, ng, ph, sh, th, wh, and wr. Some of these create a new sound, as in ch, sh, and th. Some, however, are just different spellings for already familiar sounds.

What are consonant digraph words?

Consonant digraphs refer to a joint set of consonants that form one sound. 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”.

How many consonant digraphs are there in English?

9 Consonant Digraphs You Need to Know. Learning these consonant digraph sounds will improve your reading, pronunciation, and spelling.

What is the difference between a blend and a consonant digraph?

A digraph contains two consonants and only makes one sound such as sh, /sh/. (ch, wh, th, ck) A blend contains two consonants but they each make their own sound, such as /s/ and /l/, /sl/ (st, fl, sk, gr, sw, ect.)

How do you teach consonant digraphs?

Introducing the Sound
Use decodable books with consonant digraphs to introduce the sounds.Use picture cards (chew, chop, chin, etc.) to introduce the sounds.Use a double ch letter card with other letter cards to build words. Have students build the same words with an individual pocket chart.

How do you identify a digraph?

With a Digraph being a combination of two letters that make a single sound, it can be difficult to describe them. Using consonants or vowels is the first step to describing a digraph, but using words such as ‘ph’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’ and others can be a great starting point.

Why is it important to teach consonant digraphs?

Digraphs are important to learn because if you did not know that the two letters in a digraph make one sound, you’d be unable to read many new words. We know that s says /s/ and h says /h/. When s and h are together in a word, they make a new sound, /sh/.

What are examples of consonant blends?

Some examples of initial blends are bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, sc, sl, sm, sn, sp, squ, st, sw, and three letter blends such as spr, str, shr. Ending blends include such consonant combinations as ld, lk, nd, nt, and ft. 2. Use motions to provide students with a kinesthetic definition.

How will you know if a word has a consonant digraph?

Consonant digraphs are two or more consonants that, together, represent one sound. For example, the consonants “p” and “h” form the grapheme ph that can represent the /f/ sound in words such as “nephew” and “phone.”

How do you explain digraphs to students?

A digraph is two letters which work together to make a single sound like sh in shell or fish. A digraph can be made up of vowels or consonants. Most consonant digraphs are taught in Reception (first year at school) while the vowel consonants are taught more in Year 1.

What are the most common digraphs?

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.

Do you teach digraphs or blends 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.

What are digraphs in phonics?

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 are vowel digraphs?

The correct terminology for 2 vowels working together to represent one sound is ‘vowel digraph’. The letters ‘y’, ‘w’, ‘gh’ and ‘r’ are also used in representations of vowel sounds (as in ‘ay’, ‘ow’, ‘igh’ and ‘er’), so I quite like using the term ‘vowel teams’ with younger students.

How do you explain a digraph to a child?

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.

How many digraphs are in Jolly Phonics?

Based on the 17 Jolly Phonics Digraphs.

What order do you teach digraphs?

How We Teach Blends & Digraphs
1 – Write the letters while saying the letter names and then providing the sound those letters make. 2 – Practice blending the sounds together that are provided orally. 3 – Build familiar words with those letter patterns.

Maya Lin-Takahashi
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Maya Lin-Takahashi

Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.