Digraphs and Blends: Activities and Practice

By Laura Lurns · Reviewed by Philip Weaver · Last reviewed 2026-10-21

What the federal guide says about digraphs and blends

A US federal guide on early reading came out in 2016 (Foorman and colleagues). It was written for classroom teachers, from kindergarten to third grade. It is not a guide to dyslexia. It left out studies where most children had an identified disability. Almost all its studies were done in schools, not at home. Nothing in it tests Learning Success.

The guide rates the evidence for teaching decoding and spelling as strong. It counted 18 studies of that teaching, all in schools. Thirteen found gains in reading words, spelling, or both. The guide also rates teaching the sounds in words and their letters as strong.

The guide's decoding steps include common letter patterns, like digraphs and blends. The guide's panel says how to teach these two patterns. Teach a blend as separate sounds, blended together. In stop, your child says /s/ and /t/, then runs them into the word. Teach a digraph as one unit. In ship, the s and h stand for one sound, /sh/. That is the panel's advice.

The guide's panel suggests an order for teaching letter sounds. Short vowels and single consonants come first. Then come blends, then digraphs, then silent e, then vowel teams. The order is the panel's advice. No study tested it against another order.

Sound boxes: one box for each sound

The guide describes sound boxes. You draw one box for each sound in a word. Your child pushes a counter into a box for each sound. Then they blend the sounds into the word.

Here is how we use the boxes for these patterns. A digraph takes one box, because it is one sound. Ship has three sounds, /sh/ /i/ /p/. So it gets three boxes. A blend takes one box for each of its sounds. Stop has four sounds, /s/ /t/ /o/ /p/. So it gets four boxes.

The activities

The home routines on this page are ours. We hold no home study that names these routines.

Each activity below can be played as a game. To us, that is how they get done often.

Say the sound, not the letter name. Keep each sound as short as you can. Say /s/, not suh.

Sound cards. Write sh on one card, ch on another, and th on a third. Each card shows one sound. Show a card. Your child says its sound. Mix in a few single-letter cards your child knows.

Sound boxes. Draw three boxes for chip. Your child pushes one counter for /ch/, one for /i/, and one for /p/. Then they say the word. Next, draw four boxes for spin.

Build a word. Use letter tiles, or letters on small squares of paper. In our view, keep the two letters of a digraph touching. Build ship, and your child reads it. Swap the i for o to make shop. Swap the sh for ch to make chop. For a blend, build top. Add s to the front to make stop. Then swap the o for e to make step. Change only one sound at a time.

Read short words. Write five or six words with the pattern your child is learning. Your child sounds out each one, then says the whole word. Then write one short sentence with those words. Try Chip had a fish in a dish.

Write it from its sounds. Say a word with the same pattern, like shop. Your child says its sounds, then writes the letters for each one. Then they read back what they wrote.

How to correct a mistake

When your child misreads a word, point back to the sounds. Do not just say the word. Teachers correct this way. We hold no study of this correction on its own.

Here is how it can go. Your child reads ship as sip. Point to the sh. Ask what sound those two letters make together. Then ask them to sound out the word again.

A blend works the same way. Your child reads stop as top. Point to the s, and ask for its sound. Then they sound out the whole word again.

Stay calm and keep it quick. In our view, one fix at a time is enough.

Getting the level right

For reading with you, the guide's panel suggests text with few misses. Its limit is about one missed word in ten. That is the panel's advice.

Pick words with a pattern your child has been taught. Count the misses. In our view, more than one or two means the pattern is too hard. Go back to a pattern they know well.

Guessing

The guide's panel discourages guessing words from the picture or the first letter.

Some children guess a word from its first letter. To us, that is not cheating or laziness. In our experience, children often guess when sounding out is too slow and too hard. Cover the picture. You will see quickly whether the sounding out is there.

When to ask for help

For a child who keeps struggling with sounds, the guide's panel advises extra help. That means one-on-one or in a small group.

Each of these is a reason to ask for help on its own.

• Little change, even with steady practice and good teaching.
• Reading well below what school expects.
• A teacher who raises a concern about reading.
• Extreme upset about reading.
• Complete avoidance of reading.
• Hopelessness about learning.
• Sadness or worry that lasts.
• Significant delays in speech, language or motor development.
• A skill that was there and has gone. Our position is that a lost skill goes to a doctor first, not a tutor.

Start with the teacher. Say what you are seeing at home, and what you have tried. Beyond the teacher, the right person depends on what it turns out to be about. If the work is too hard, someone who works on that school skill. If worry or mood is the thing, someone who works with children's mental health. In our view, delays in speech, language or movement are worth raising with your child's doctor. In our view, if you are worried enough to ask, a professional evaluation is worth asking about.

Any talk of hurting themselves is a same-day call to your doctor or a crisis line.