What Are Consonant Digraphs and Strategies to Teach Them: Phonics Rules for Teachers Episode 11

Learn what a consonant digraph is and what are the most common consonant digraphs. Learn how to teach consonant digraphs to your students using these practical strategies.

A classroom teacher with 10 years of experience, Martha Moore hosts the Phonics Rules for Teachers Podcast. Drawing from her personal journey, she shares insights on transitioning from traditional teaching methods to a phonics-centered approach and the impact it has on students' reading and writing.

Each week , Martha shares a simple phonics rule, strategy, or background information and how you can teach it in your classroom.

You can find the How the Heck to Teach 'Em supplementary resource to go along with this series here: https://www.myprimaryparadise.com/shop/phonics-rules-resources/

Transcript

Today, I'm going to share everything you need to know to teach consonant digraphs to your students. Welcome to Episode 11 of Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them.

Today, we're going to be talking about what consonant digraphs are, what the most common consonant digraph spelling patterns are, and how to teach them to your students. Let's start with: what is a digraph? A digraph is simply two letters that work together to represent one sound. Before students begin to work on consonant digraphs, there are a few skills that they should already have a firm understanding of. First, they should know the difference between letters and sounds. They should also know the difference between consonants and vowels. They should know how to both read and write single-letter sounds as well as short vowels, and they should understand what a closed syllable is. Once your students know all of those things, they are ready to learn about digraphs.

The first digraphs that I like to focus on (and the order is not super important) are sh, ch, th, ng, and ck. When introducing digraphs, you can explain to students that they have learned that letters represent sounds. You can write down some single letters and ask them to produce the sounds that each of those single letters represents. Then you can explain that sometimes letters work together to represent one sound. Explain that two letters that work together to represent one sound are called a digraph. From there, you can focus on teaching students one digraph sound at a time, where we would find that in a word, and what sound that digraph makes. And just to be clear, digraphs can be consonant digraphs; there can also be vowel digraphs. Today, we're just focusing on consonant digraphs.

Here is a quick breakdown of the first consonant digraphs that you should be teaching your students:

1. sh: Sh represents the "sh" sound and can be found at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Some examples of words with this digraph are fish, shop, and mushroom.
2. ch: Ch represents the "ch" sound and can also be found in the beginning, middle, or end of a word. A side note: typically, if we hear the "ch" sound at the end of a word directly after a single short vowel, it will be spelled with tch. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as much and such. Some examples of words that have the ch spelling pattern are chop, cherry, and lunch.
3. ng: Ng represents the "ng" sound as in ring or sang. This spelling pattern is typically found at the end of a word or a syllable. When it is found in the middle of a word, it is typically pronounced slightly differently. Think of angry versus sing.
4. th: The th spelling pattern can actually represent two different sounds. It can represent the unvoiced sound "th" (as in thin) or the voiced sound "th" (as in that). Th can also be found at the beginning, middle, or end of a word.
5. ck: Ck represents the "k" sound as in pick. It is found at the end of a word or syllable. In English, we never spell "k" with a ck at the beginning of a word. Understanding when to use ck goes a little bit deeper, so I will be covering that in my next episode.

Now let's talk about some strategies that you can use to teach consonant digraphs to your students. I personally like to teach the consonant digraphs in this order: sh, ch, th. Once students have a firm understanding of those digraphs, I will teach ng and ck.

1. Use visuals and prompts: If this isn't your first time watching Phonics Rules for Teachers, you will know that I love a good hand motion, a good rhyme, and a good song. First, I use this visual to help students remember that a digraph is two letters that represent one sound. We say, "A digraph is two letters, one sound. Two letters, one sound." I also like to use specific prompts for each digraph as I teach it. You can, of course, come up with your own prompts, but these are the ones that I use, and they are quite effective. For sh, we put our fingers on our lips and say, "Shush." For ch, we "chew the chips." For th, we "think that." For ng, we say, "Strong."
2. Word mapping: Again, if you've seen Phonics Rules for Teachers before, you know that I love word mapping because it is a great way to help students understand new phonics concepts. When we map words, we count the sounds we hear in a word, put down a counter for each sound we hear, and then write down the letters that represent each sound. So, for example, if I were going to map the word shop, I would say it and count the sounds: /sh/ /o/ /p/. I have three sounds, so I'm going to put down three counters and then think about how we would spell each sound. /sh/ is spelled "sh," /o/ is spelled "o," and /p/ is spelled with a "p": shop. Doing this when you are learning each new digraph with a few words is a great way to help your students think about the fact that it's two letters that make one sound.
3. Add digraphs to your daily sound drill: As I've mentioned many times before, I use a daily sound drill every day with my students. It takes about two, maybe three minutes, and it's a great way to warm up with the sounds that they have learned. I make a very simple PowerPoint and flip through the slides, and students produce the sound or sounds that each spelling pattern represents. This is one of the easiest ways to make sure your students are constantly reviewing the sounds that they have already learned.
4. Backwards decoding: Backwards decoding is a great activity for any sound, and that is true for digraphs as well. I normally begin to introduce this around the time that we learn digraphs with my students. Backwards decoding helps students focus on the vowel and look closely at the letters and the words as they practice reading it. It looks something like this: We start with the rhyme of a word; the students produce that. Then we add the onset, and they read that as well. You can do this with more complicated words, but again, it works for simple words and for digraphs as well. This is great practice, and it helps your students really focus and look at the words that they are reading. Of course, it's great to explain to them that this is an activity, a drill, and this isn't how we need to read a word when we're reading in a book.
5. Practice in context: Once students are able to decode single words with the digraph pattern that you are teaching them, take time and allow them to practice reading it in simple decodable text. As they learn more digraphs, the text should include all of the sounds that they have learned. Practicing the sounds in context is, of course, the goal when we're teaching our students phonics. We want them to be able to apply what they have learned as they are reading.
6. Practice in the context of the closed syllable: Until students have learned other syllable types and other spelling patterns, have them practice reading and writing the digraph spelling patterns in closed syllable words so that way they're fully able to encode and decode all of the sounds in the word. Of course, if you are making a list of ch words and students say words like cherry or chariot or words that are more complex, for sure add them to your student-generated list. But when you're expecting them to be able to read and write words at this point, they should be reading and writing closed syllable words if that is the only syllable type that they have learned. Of course, as they learn new syllable types and new spelling patterns, they should be incorporating their knowledge of digraphs while they are reading and writing those new spelling patterns and those new words.

And now you know how to teach digraphs to your students. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and I look forward to seeing you next week as we take a deep look into CK versus K and how your students can know which one to use and when.