This document discusses consonant blends, digraphs, and trigraphs. It defines them as groups of letters that represent single sounds. Digraphs use two letters, trigraphs use three, and blends combine letters so you can hear each sound clearly joined together. Mastering these concepts helps with spelling and reading proficiency by learning to analyze sounds in words. The document provides examples and exercises to help readers distinguish between these letter combinations and apply their understanding.

1. Reading 101
Consonant Blends, Digraphs &
Trigraphs

2. Learning Objectives

Master the rules governing the use of digraphs
and consonant blends in spelling and reading.

Pronounce and spell accurately by being
knowledgeable in digraphs, trigraphs and blends.

3. Introduction
• As you can recall, a phoneme is the smallest
unit of 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 and
tackle.
Short /i/ sound as in it, gift and inflate.

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 represented by more than 1
grapheme.
• Digraph – 2-letter sound:
ph or /f/ sound – phone and phonics
kn or /n/ sound – know and knife
• Trigraph – 3-letter sound:
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 sound joined
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. Consonant Blends
cl in clock, class, click
bl in block, blink, bless
br in brick, brass, brave
fl in floor, float, flee
fr in frog, frock, fret
gl in glass, glad, glee
gr in grass, great, groan
Q: Read the blends and the words with them.
What's common about consonant blends?

8. Application
• To improve your vocabulary, you need phonemic
awareness (letter sounds) and whole language
(text reading habit).
• Difficult words come naturally to you if you have
heard or seen them (whole language) and can
recognise their parts and analyse them
(phonemice awareness)
1) charisma – /k/ + /air/ + /r/ + /e/ + /s/ + /m/ + /a/
2) perserverance - /p/ + /er/ + /s/ + /er/ + /v/ + /e/ + /r/
+ /a/ + /n/ + /ce/

9. Activity
The following are scientific words that have been
spelt incorrectly. Using your knowledge of
phonemic awareness and memory of these
words, correct their spelling.
1) orgeneesm 6) polushun
2) cklorefil 7) digairshun
3) resperatori 8) lairboretory
4) opaek 9) transloocent
5) evaperayshun 10) termoremeter

10. Discussion
• What are digraphs, trigraphs and blends?
• What are the use of digraphs and trigraphs?

11. In Summary
Digraphs and Trigraphs represent 2-letters, 3-
letters that produce one sound. Blends produce a
joined sound, but we can still hear each sound
inside the blend.
Together with phonics (analyse sounds) and
whole-language learning (reading texts), we
become more proficient in spelling and reading.
They help us to identify the combined or blended
sound we need to spell and read correctly.