Consonant Digraph Sounds (sh, ch, th, wh)
Blend and produce consonant digraphs at word-initial and word-final position.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Say the sound and show the two letters together, repeatedly. The confusion this board addresses is the child who reads ship as s-hip, and the fix is presenting the pair as one unit visually. Do sh first — it is the most stable and the easiest to hear — then ch, then th, and leave wh for last since in most accents it now sounds like /w/ anyway, which is worth saying rather than pretending otherwise.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentShow the card and wait 3 seconds for the student to read it.Log as correct
- Point to itPoint to the letter pattern that matters, or tap under each sound.Log as cued
- Sound it outSay the first sound together, then let the student blend the rest.Log as cued
- ModelRead it, tapping each sound; the student reads it after you.Log as cued
Adjust it
Use fewer cards and start with the patterns the student already reads, such as 'ship' and 'shell'.
Read the words in a sentence, or spell them from dictation.
Matching IEP goal
Given decodable word cards, such as 'ship' and 'shell', Student will read the target pattern accurately in 8 of 10 words across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than a visual cue.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Sixteen words covering four digraphs in both positions: ship, shell, fish and wash for sh; chip, chair, beach and lunch for ch; thin, think, bath and tooth for th; whale, wheel, when and white for wh. A digraph is two letters making one sound, and the reason it needs its own board is that children who know each letter separately will try to say both.
What to listen for
Listen for th specifically. It is the last of these to develop in speech and the one most often replaced with /f/ or /d/, so thin becoming fin and bath becoming baf are expected in younger children rather than errors to be alarmed by. Watch the final-position words — fish, beach, bath, tooth — since a digraph at the end of a word is harder than one at the start for both reading and speech.
Carrying it home
Digraph words are everywhere: fish, shell, chair, bath, white. Pointing to the two letters and saying the one sound is a five-second interaction that reinforces the whole idea.
What's in this activity
- ship
- shell
- fish
- wash
- chip
- chair
- beach
- lunch
- thin
- think
- bath
- tooth
- whale
- wheel
- when
- white
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- First and second, where digraphs are a core phonics expectation.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all sixteen words play with no login.
- My student says 'fin' for 'thin'. Is that a reading problem?
- Usually a speech one, and often a typical developmental pattern at this age. /th/ is among the last sounds to develop, and a child who reads the word correctly and says it as fin is decoding fine.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.