Free Printable Phonics Letter Sound Flashcards for Kids

Published:
November 15, 2023

Contributor:
Sara Dennis

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There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, but they can be combined in so many different ways that learning to read can seem like a big challenge to young students. Phonics letter sound flashcards help kids learn new sounds and master the different sounds each letter of the alphabet makes.

Printable Phonics Letter Sound Flashcards and Charts

Learning how to read can be challenging when there are individual letters to learn, consonant sounds, and vowel sounds, plus an endless list of new words.

This is why our Free Printable Phonics Sounds Cards are the perfect tool to help you help your kids learn the sounds of 84 different letter combinations. They are the perfect activity for early learners and can help your child develop phonemic awareness, part of understanding how sounds in whole words work. 

Scroll down to the bottom of this post for our Free Phonics Sounds Cards & Charts Instant Download.

Importance of Phonics

Phonics is a necessary skill in learning how to read English. Learning sight words can only take a child so far as they will only know the automatic recall of those words. Eventually, your child will run into a word they haven’t seen before, so it’s important to equip them with the tools to move from familiar words to unknown words. 

Phonics helps children to recognize spelling patterns and starts to teach children the skill of decoding the letters into the ​alphabet sound that letter makes.

This way, your kid will be able to connect the word they’re attempting to read with a word already in their spoken vocabulary. It builds on common sounds, single sounds, and groups of letters.

Ultimately, phonics is the skill that allows children to advance to becoming fluent readers and reading more and more difficult words until they reach an adult reading level.

How to Teach Phonics

  1. The first step to teaching children phonics is to teach kids letter recognition and the basic letter sounds. Once children are adept at recognizing the letters and their correct sound, begin to teach your children how to blend using simple words with short vowels such as as, at, ax, ox, and it.
  2. Now it’s time to move on to CVC words. CVC words are consonant – vowel – consonant words. Some sample words are pig, cat, dog, man, hum, and hen. The middle sounds are always a short vowel sound.
  3. The next step is to teach children how to read consonant blends before teaching the long vowels. Eventually, you’ll move on to other letter patterns such as consonant clusters and consonant digraphs.

Free Phonics and Reading Resources:

Phonics books and worksheets are such a helpful tool when you are teaching your students how to read. These can be used in preschool and up through 2nd grade and higher. You’ll also find some great ideas to teach sight words in addition to phonics as well.

Ideas and Activities that Teach Sight Words to Beginning Readers | Some basic words beginning readers need to read don’t follow the rules of phonics, or these words use advanced letter combinations that young children haven’t learned yet. So, here are some fun ideas and activities to teach these sight words to your kids.

Free Consonant Blend Story with Simple Copywork | If you’re teaching consonant blends to your kids, here’s a fun story about Gloria the Glamorous Globe for you to read together. There’s even some simple copywork to complete that will help to reinforce the gl- letter combination.

Free Printable Phonics Books and Worksheets | Are you looking for some fun phonics printables for beginners? Then you’ll love these printables. You’ll find vowel sound worksheets, easy books, consonant blends, and more for you to use with your kids.

More Phonics Worksheets and Activities:

These free phonics resources come as different PDF files for you to use to teach your children how to read.

Free Phonics Cut and Paste Activity | The Phonics Cut and Paste activity sheets cover many different letter combinations to teach kids phonics. Your kids will love cutting out the pictures and matching them to the various words.

Free Phonics Charts to Print & Color | These free phonics charts give kids a chance to interact with the words they’re learning. The charts also give kids the chance to sequence words into sentences.

Free Preschool Letter Sounds Matching Cards | These task cards are great fun for kids learning the initial sounds of the alphabet. Kids match the letter with the initial sounds in the words. This way, they learn the sounds of single letters and connect them to the first letter in various words. For instance, they’ll match the letter C with a cow. In addition, these cards use both upper-case and lower-case letters so kids learn to recognize both. 

Free Reading CVC Cut and Paste Pack | This free pack includes 65 CVC words for your kids to practice reading. Plus, it’s an easy cut and paste activity. Print the pack, hand it to your child with scissors and glue, and let them work. Your child will have fun sounding out the different words.

Letter of the Week Series

You might also want to grab some free resources for teaching about the letters of the alphabet in our Letter of the Week Series. It’s an engaging way to introduce your kids to one or more new letters each week, practice upper case and lower case letters, and start to build basic phonics skills. 

Each week you will work on a different alphabet letter with your child. For instance, you’ll begin with the letter A the first week, letter B the second week, and letter C the third week.

This alphabet letter worksheets series provides links to various printables, crafts, books, and recipes that go with each letter of the alphabet. It’s well organized so you can easily find the information you need.

Fun Activities to Teach Phonics

The mistake people make when teaching the different phonics patterns is to drill children in phonics until the kids are miserable. There’s no reason to do this. Instead, it’s a good idea to teach phonics in a fun way using flash card sets for phonics games and phonics songs for memorization and quick recall.

You will see many of these types of  activities done in preschool classrooms for early intervention and in occupational therapy lessons.

Phonics Games

Phonics games are the perfect way to teach phonics patterns. You can use games that concentrate on the initial sound or focus on the final sounds of different words. If you have a set of flashcards and letter cards you can play memory games with them. 

If you have two sets of printable phonics flashcards or alphabet letter cards,  you can match the alphabet letters up. Match the lowercase letters to the capital letters. You can even use sound picture cards to match different letter words to.

Make up your own games and tailor your lesson plans to meet the needs of a struggling reader. Even older students enjoy playing phonics games, and fun games are a great way to make schoolwork feel less like work. 

Phonics Songs and Videos

These videos are so much fun to teach phonics with. Kids learn so much through songs and fun animated videos. 

Rock N Learn – This channel has lots of playlists of phonics songs with adorable characters and animations to keep little ones engaged. There are many different subject areas that are included in his videos. 

Alphablocks – The Alphablocks are living letters who discover that whenever they hold hands to make a word magic happens. These are fun episodes and songs from the BBC that your kids will enjoy.

Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel – This is another favorite channel for all things early learning. Kids love singing along with Jack Hartmann with his catchy tunes and fun hand movements and motions.

Miss Molly – Miss Molly Sing Along Songs has playlists for letter songs, sight word songs and more. 

Phonics Sound Cards & Charts

This Free Phonics Sounds Cards & Charts unit starts with a quick reference guide for you as the parent. All 84 letter combinations are listed along with the three sample words given for reviewing each sound. 

Phonics Sound Cards

Included are 84 printable color flashcards that feature the letter combination, three sample words, and sound pictures that illustrate those three words and the sounds that they make. 

Finally, there are 84 black and white flash cards that feature the letter combination and pictures of the sample words. Print out both sets to help your children play games with for independent work and you will have two complete flashcard sets.

Your student can write each of the words on the flash card and color the picture if they like. It’s a great tool to help learn combinations from AI to WH as well as extra practice with print letters.

Phonics Flash Cards

Instant Download: Phonics Sound Cards and Charts