Digraphs! This word is big enough to intimidate and overwhelm any parent wondering how to teach their child this complicated and technical subject! Don’t worry, we have got you covered.
What Is A Digraph?
A digraph is two letters combined to make a single sound in written or spoken English. A digraph can consist of consonants and vowels. These shouldn’t be confused with adjacent consonants, where each letter makes a distinct sound rather than combining to make one sound.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!
Different Type Of Digraph With Examples
Here are the types of digraphs:
1. Double letter digraphs
There are 2 different types of digraphs: heterogeneous digraphs and homogeneous digraphs.
Heterogeneous digraphs consist of 2 different letters, whilst homogeneous digraphs contain 2 instances of the same letter. Homogeneous digraphs are often referred to as ‘double letter digraphs’.
Examples of heterogeneous digraphs:
- chair
- luck
- think
- Earth
- whale
- writing
- their
- read
- toe
- recruit
- argue
Examples of Homogeneous digraphs:
- cook
- boom
- moon
- feet
- beet
- peek
- sheet
- buzz
- fluff
- bell
- confess
2. Split Digraphs
Split digraphs can be a confusing topic for kids learning phonics as the letters are not directly beside one another in the words. In its simplest form, a split digraph is a set of 2 letters that make one sound, but are separated within the word. The split digraph uses an ‘e’ after the initial vowel to warp and change the sound of the vowel.
For example: It turns the word ‘hug’ into ‘huge’ and ‘sit’ into ‘site’. The addition of the ‘e’ after the initial vowel changes the sound of the word from a short, harsh one to a longer, soft sound.
There are 5 split digraphs in the English language. They are as follows:
1. a-e
- cake
- tame
- make
- fake
- cape
- flame
- gave
- amaze
- lake
2. e-e
- swede
- evening
- theme
- delete
- compete
- these
- concrete
3. i-e
- pipe
- time
- slime
- ripe
- tike
- shine
- bride
- knife
4. o-e
- zone
- phone
- come
- alone
- drone
- mole
- hose
- pose
- drove
5. u-e
- prune
- cube
- tube
- commune
- june
- flute
- huge
- tune
When To Teach Digraphs To Kids?
Digraphs are an important lesson in phonics taught to children at an early age to ensure that their spoken language and pronunciations are correct. Once your child has learnt the basics of phonics, and the correct phonetic pronunciation of each letter of the alphabet, you can help them read and pronounce simple words. In the next step, you can introduce letter blends and how to correctly spell and pronounce these. Once your child is well-versed in this concept, you can go on to teaching them digraphs.
Consonant Digraphs With Example
Consonant digraphs are groups of two consonants that make a single sound. Here is a list of consonant digraphs
- sh – as in ‘she,’ or ‘wish’
- kn – as in ‘know,’ or ‘knock’
- ch – as in ‘chair,’ or ‘chat’
- ph – as in ‘phone,’ or ‘phonics’
- wr – as in ‘wrench,’ or ‘wreck’
- ck – as in ‘tick,’ or ‘pluck’
- ss – as in ‘chess,’ or ‘class’
- tch – as in ‘watch,’ or ‘witch’
- th – as in ‘think,’ or ‘throw’
- wh – as in ‘when,’ or ‘where’
- ch – as in ‘rich,’ or ‘much’
- sh – as in ‘shoe,’ or ‘sheep.’
Vowel Digraphs With Examples
These are groups of two letters that make one sound, where at least one is a vowel. Vowel digraphs are typically placed in the middle of words, although this isn’t always the case.
When teaching phonics, teachers often look at one sound and show children other ways it can be made and written down as a grapheme (the written symbols/letters that represent sounds).
For example: ‘say,’ ‘gain’ and ‘pray’ all contain the same sound, but all contain different digraphs.
Children will also learn about split digraphs. These occur when digraphs like ‘ae,’ ‘oe,’ ‘ie,’ ‘ee,’ ‘ue’ are ‘split’ by consonants. Below are a couple of examples:
1. The word ‘lie’ contains the digraph ‘ie.’ In the word ‘line’, this digraph has been ‘split’ by the consonant n to form a new word.
2. The word ‘rue’ contains the digraph ‘ue.’ In the word ‘rule,’ this digraph has been ‘split’ by the consonant l to form a new word.
Here is a list of vowel digraphs
- ow – as in know or snow
- ui – as in fruit or bruise
- oe – as in toe or goes
- oa – as in boat or road
- ea – as in thread or lead
- ea – as in read or beach
- ie – as in pie or lie
- ie – as in field or chief
- ue – as in glue or fuel
- oo – as in wood or flood
- ey – as in they or prey
- ai – as in rain or pain.
How To Teach Digraphs to Kindergarteners – Tips and Activities
Here are some activities that will help your child to learn digraphs. It makes learning fun as well as effective.
1. Digraph Wheels
Grab a few old CD and paint over it. Divide it in a few section and draw a few simple figures over it like cherry, cheese and bench on one CD; a ship, a shark and a fish on another and so on. Now, on a chart paper, write down some digraphs like “ch” and “sh”. Let your child match the correct digraph with the CD and place the CD on the digraph such that the letters show through the center.
2. Digraph Pictionary
Make a few cards with a digraph written on each, like ch, sh, th, ph and so on. Let the child draw one of the cards. Now, set a minute’s timer and ask the child to draw as many simple drawings as they can of things that are spelt with that digraph. The others must guess the digraph that is common in all those objects.
3. Minute To Win It
This is a fun activity to keep your child occupied while making the most of the fun time by learning and practicing digraphs. On a sheet of paper, make four columns. Write four different digraphs on top of each of the column, eg “oo” “ee” etc. Set a timer for a minute and ask your child to list down as many words under each category as they can remember.
4. Digraph Frashcards
If you have flashcards from their toddler years and aren’t getting much use for them now, it’s time to give them a DIY upgrade. Get a marker, and underline the digraph in each of the words. Now, show your child the cards one by one, and let them pronounce all the words in the flashcards with emphasis on the digraph.
5. Match And Sort
Print the pictures of a few objects. Tell your child to visualise the spellings of each of the objects, and identify which digraph it uses. Now, collect all the objects with the same digraph in one pile. For instance, feet, sheet, heel, jeep, etc will be in one pile.
Learning through fun is the most effective method as it gives your child a first hand experience and makes it more memorable. Keep practising by reading and writing everyday so that your child is perfectly well-versed with all digraphs and their pronunciations.
Also Read:
Modal Verbs for Children
Countries and their Capitals for Children
How to Teach Singular and Plural Nouns To Kids
