1. Reading 101
Phonics Rules -
Digraphs and Trigraphs

2. Learning Objectives

Master the rules governing the use of digraphs,
trigraphs and quadgraphs in phonics.

Pronounce accurately by being phonemically
aware and phonetically knowledgeable.

3. Introduction
• As you can recall, phonemes form the most
basic sound in a word.
• Some examples include:
/b/ sound as in bonfire, black, bathtub, and
balcony.
/f/ sound as in fossil, fail, frame, and fingerprint.
Short /a/ sound as in at, taxi, anniversary,
laboratory, and tackle.
Short /i/ sound as in it, gift, inflate and spinach

4. Digraphs and Trigraphs
• Just as a flower with 3 petals is no more or
less than a flower with 2 petals, a single sound
can be produced by more than a single letter.
• Digraph – 2-letter sound. For example,
ph or /f/ sound – phone and phonics
kn or /n/ sound – know and knife
• Trigraph – 3-letter sound. For example,
igh or /i/ sound – light and plight
tch or /ch/ sound– match and catch

5. Digraphs and Trigraphs
• In digraphs, consonants join together to form
a kind of consonant team, which makes a
special sound.
• Similarly for trigraphs, consonants join
together to form a consonant team as well.
• In the earlier examples, /p/ and /h/ combine to
form /ph/, which makes /f/ sound as in phone.
• If you are unaware that /ph/ is /f/, you will
read it as /p/ + /h/ combined, which is clearly
wrong!

6. Consonant Blend
• When two or more consonants appear
together and you hear each sound that each
consonant would normally make, the
consonant team is called a consonant blend.
• In other words, the resultant sound is the
combined sound of each consonant.

7. More Consonant Blends
• /fr/ as in frog, frock, friend
• /fl/ as in fleece, flee, floss
• /cl/ as in class, clock, click, clown
• /cr/ as in crab, crass, crest, watercress
• /gl/ as in glad, glass, glee, glow
• /gr/ as in grass, grab, great, graph

8. Application
• To improve your vocabulary, you need your
knowledge of phoneme (letter sounds), phonics
(sound rules) and whole language (reading texts).
• Difficult words come naturally to you if you have
heard them (whole language), know their parts
and analyse them (phonemes and phonics)
1) charisma – /k/ + /air/ + /r/ + /e/ + /s/ + /m/ + /a/
2) diaphragm - /d/ + /i/ + /er/ + /ph/ + /ragm/

9. Discussion
• What do digraphs and trigraphs represent?
• What are the use of digraphs and trigraphs in
pronunciation?
• When digraphs and trigraphs are read as each
letter sound combined, what are they called?

10. Discussion (suggested answers)
• What do digraphs and trigraphs represent?
They represent 2-letter and 3-letter sounds.
• What are the use of digraphs and trigraphs in
pronunciation?
They help us to identify the special or blended
sound they produce.
• When digraphs and trigraphs are read as each
letter sound combined, what are they called?
Consonant Blends

11. In Summary
• We learn about phonemes as they help us in
our spelling choice and reading.
• Together with phonics (analyse sounds) and
whole-language learning (reading texts), we
become more proficient in spelling and
reading.
• Digraphs and Trigraphs introduce the idea of
one sound represented by 2 and 3 letters
respectively to help us read accurately when
we see them.