Consonants
Consonant digraphs
A consonant digraph is two consonants that together make one new sound, as in “ship”, “chin”, “that”, “when” and “phone”. They matter early because a reader who sounds out s-h will never arrive at “ship”, so the pair has to be taught as a single unit rather than separate sounds.
Worth separating from blends explicitly. In a digraph the two letters make one sound; in a blend you still hear both. Children who confuse the two tend to over-segment digraphs and under-segment blends.
Patterns and example words
Every word below is from the word list Cody generates from, not a hand-picked sample. The count is how many words in that list carry the pattern.
sh
3,227 wordsshe should show showed showing shown shows share
ch
2,464 wordswhich much such child children change changed changes
th
3,085 wordsthe their theirs them they that those with
wh
416 wordswhich who whom whose when what where why
ph
969 wordsphone phoned phones phoning telephone telephoned telephones telephoning
ck
3,328 wordsback backed backing backs black blacked blacker blackest
ng
6,494 wordsbeing beings having doing willing saying sayings going
voiced th
506 wordsthe their theirs them they that those with
unvoiced th
2,580 wordsthink thinking thinks thought thoughts thing things through
Curricula that teach this
Cody generates material against the scope and sequence you already teach. This skill appears in Cody Curriculum, Custom Pattern Selection, UFLI Inspired, Wilson Reading System.
Common questions
What is the difference between a digraph and a blend?
In a digraph the two letters make one new sound, so sh says /sh/. In a blend you can still hear each letter, so bl says /b/ then /l/ quickly together.
Make a decodable story for this skill
Cody generates stories, word lists and worksheets constrained to the patterns a student has already been taught, so practice on consonant digraphs does not smuggle in something they have not met yet.