Helping your child read is made much easier when you’ve got 1st grade phonics worksheets to guide you and your lessons. These worksheets are a great way for your 1st grader to practice their basic reading skills. The worksheets are fun and engaging and can be used in the classroom or at home!
Things like learning the alphabet are easy first steps to reading, but there’s more to it. Beyond letter names and sounds, your little one will need to master phonics. The phonics worksheets gathered below are an awesome tool to support your student in transitioning from alphabet basics into more complex phonics work.
Table of Contents
- What Phonics Do 1st Graders Learn?
- The Best 1st Grade Phonics Worksheets
- What Are Blend Words for 1st Grade?
- Check Out These Additional 1st Grade Resources
What Phonics Do 1st Graders Learn?
In first grade, your kids will learn about many elements of phonics, including digraphs which are two letters that represent a single sound. Digraphs are important for early readers because they can decode these sounds within words. Digraphs include letters like “ch,” “th,” “sh,” and “ph.”
First graders will also learn long and short vowel sounds. Blends like “bl-” (as in black) and “cl-” (as in clock) are covered in first grade. Don’t forget about hard and soft consonants too.
In partnership with Teach Simple, whose marketplace is full of educational materials created by actual teachers (plus 50% of all revenues go to them), I’ve gathered 19 go-to grade 1 phonics worksheets to support your students on their reading journeys!
The Best 1st Grade Phonics Worksheets
- Circling Long Vowel Sounds A Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
A simple and straightforward worksheet, this long vowel A worksheet will reinforce the concept of long vowel sounds with ease. The colorful images make it engaging while supportive.
- Hard Soft C Pictures Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
Practice identifying hard and soft C sounds with this illustrated worksheet. This simple task is perfect for reinforcing the essential phonic skills your little one needs.
- UB Word Family Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
This worksheet focuses on the “-ub” word pattern. Your students will cut and then match together the word family with the other letter combinations on the page. The result forms complete words.
- Spelling Long E Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
This fill-in-the-blank style worksheet is the ideal practice for students who are struggling with the long E sounds. This offers a nice shift from the simple identification worksheets!
- Add Silent E Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
Silent letters offer an additional layer of trickiness for little learners. This worksheet is ideal practice to help students start to identify the sneaky silent letters that pop up in English words!
- Digraphs Word List By Have Fun Teaching
Digraphs sound a little more complicated than they truly are—but this simple worksheet will help students work on them with speed and accuracy.
- Long Vowel Coloring Sheet By Have Fun Teaching
Marrying together coloring and phonics practice, this worksheet helps students with their long vowel sounds. The multimodal approach creates an added layer for learning and engagement.
- NG/NK Digraph Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
A mix of digraphs and blends, this worksheet takes two of the trickier phonics concepts and puts them together. This is a great practice for those advanced readers or older first graders.
- Short U Beginning And Ending Sounds Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
Your reader can get in practice with U and how it’s used at the start and end of words with this lovely and bright worksheet.
- EA Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
This worksheet is a fill-in-the-blank style practice sheet with a word bank. Your reader will have the chance to practice reading, use context clues, and, of course, develop their “ea” phonics skills!
- E Like Leaf Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
This reading comprehension passage focuses on the long E sound. Students will use their knowledge of long and short vowel sounds as they work through this passage.
- Long Vowels Filling in the Blank Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
Another fill-in-the-blank style worksheet, these sentences will have your little reader understanding long vowel sounds in no time. This sheet allows them to use context and their knowledge of phonics together.
- Starts with CH Reading Comprehension Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
An incredibly common blend, the “CH” sound is one students often find tricky. This worksheet allows them to practice identifying words that start with “CH” in the context of a larger reading passage.
- Double Vowels Fill In The Blank Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
On this worksheet, first graders will select the vowel pair and place it within the existing word. This type of practice is a bit more advanced so it’s good for kids who are farther along in their phonics work.
- Smith And Smitty SM Phonics Stories Reading Comprehension Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
Phonics stories are a great way to help students understand how words sounds within a story and how to use context clues to figure out words with phonics sounds they may not know well. This “sm” phonics story is a fun way to practice this sound.
- EW UI Vowel Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
This sorting activity focuses students on the “ew” and “ui” vowel pairs. They’ll practice identifying the appropriate words, placing them in the correct categories, and writing the words all in one fell swoop!
- Beginning Blends Transportation Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
This worksheet asks students to identify the blend that matches the vehicle shown. This sheet is great for partner work where they can say the word aloud and circle the appropriate letter pair. Plus, it’s a fun look at the many planes, trains, and automobiles that begin with blends!
- TH Picture Circle Worksheet By Have Fun Teaching
Identifying the “th” sound is no easy feat for our youngest readers, but this fun and simple worksheet is exactly the practice they’ll need. They will simply say the word, identify the “the” sound, and circle the correct images.
- Carson Dellosa Phonics For First Grade Workbook From Carson Dellosa
This 64 page workbook covers tracing and writing letters, words, consonant and vowel sounds, word families, and more. Every student will find something to keep them engaged with different phonics activities, like puzzles, games, plus motivation stickers.
What Are Blend Words for 1st Grade?
Blends are two consonants that blend together to make a new sound (as opposed to digraphs which are two consonants that each only make one singular sound). For example, the “st” in the word “stop” or the “th” in “thank” are blends.
Blend words offer an interesting challenge. Making connections between sounds and letters is tricky, especially when looking at phonic elements like blends. But fear not! With the 1st grade phonics worksheets above, your child will gradually begin to understand blends and the specific sounds they make in new vocabulary words.
Check Out These Additional 1st Grade Resources
About the Author
Ali Pierce has been a proud public school teacher for nearly a decade. An English teacher by day, Ali works with educators throughout K-12 in a variety of coaching and support roles. A proud Wildcat, Ali earned both her BA in Creative Writing and M.Ed. in Teaching and Teacher Education from the University of Arizona. When not teaching, Ali can be found hanging out with her two young sons and sneaking in some reading for fun.
