Teaching · Reading Intervention

Two letters,
one sound.

A digraph is two letters that spell one sound: the sh in ship, the ck in duck. Deal short-vowel words by digraph and by where it sits, with the sound written on each card, a phrase to read and made-up words to check the student is reading, not guessing.

Make a set of wordsWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Reading Intervention toolkit, $49 for 51 items.

Make a set of digraph words

The worked example is made up: a kindergartner on sh and ch, and a first grader on th, ck and ng. Saved on this device only.

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What you get

Teaching · Reading Intervention$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A set of 6, 10 or 16 short-vowel words chosen by digraph (sh, ch, th, wh, ck, ng) and position, each with the digraph’s sound and a phrase, plus notes on errors.
Who it is for
Reading interventionists, special education teachers, classroom teachers teaching phonics and tutors working with a structured literacy sequence.
Format
Browser card maker with saved sets. Prints the words as cut-out cards or as a list for a lesson plan or home reading; presents one word at a time for a screen at the table; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Reading Intervention toolkit ($49) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Reading Intervention space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Teach one or two digraphs at a time, with a key word and a gesture.
  2. Have the student scoop the two letters with a finger, then read the word.
  3. Tap the sounds, not the letters: ship is three taps.
  4. Mix in made-up words and the phrase on each card.
  5. Note errors and print the set for the next lesson or home reading.

Make a set of words

What a digraph is

Two letters, one soundScoop the digraphs h i pScoop s and h togetherThree sounds: /sh/ /i//p/Count the soundsf i s h has four lettersand three soundsTap one per soundKnow the spotswh starts wordsck and ng end themsh, ch, th go eitherplaceTwo letters, one soundScoop the digraphs h i pScoop s and h togetherThree sounds: /sh/ /i/ /p/Count the soundsf i s h has four lettersand three soundsTap one per soundKnow the spotswh starts wordsck and ng end themsh, ch, th go either place
Drawn for this page. Counting sounds, not letters, is what makes a digraph click.

One sound, not two

In a digraph the two letters do not keep their own sounds: s and h together make /sh/, a new sound. Students who sound each letter (“s-h-ip”) need to see the pair as one unit.

Where they go

wh starts words; ck ends one-syllable words right after a short vowel; ng comes at the end of a syllable. sh, ch and th can go at either end.

th has two sounds

th is voiced in words like this, them and with, and unvoiced in thin, bath and math. Both are spelled the same way.

Sources

  1. Moats, L. C. (1994). The missing foundation in teacher education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and written language. Annals of Dyslexia, 44, 81 to 102. PMID 24234047.
  2. Moats, L. C. (2020). Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers (3rd ed.). Brookes. Syllable types and spelling conventions.
  3. Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5 to 21.
  4. International Dyslexia Association. Structured literacy: phonology, sound-symbol association, syllables, morphology (dyslexiaida.org).

Words and phrases were written for this page; the example sets and students are made up. Syllable divisions follow the common structured literacy conventions, and dictionaries sometimes divide a word differently. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.