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What are graphemes and phonemes?

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet which make 44 different sounds called phonemes.

Graphemes are written symbols that represent a sound (phoneme). Some phonemes may be represented by more than one grapheme.

They can either be a single letter or a group of letters such as:

• one letter grapheme - 'i', 'o', 's', 'h'
• two letters - 'ch', 'sh', 'qu'
• three letters 'ear', 'air', 'igh'

For example the word light is made up of three graphemes.

l / igh / t

Do graphemes have more than one sound?

It can get tricky when one grapheme like 'ch' can represent three different sounds when used in different words such as:

• chase
• chef
• school

Sometimes a phoneme can be written in different ways and have more than one grapheme such as /o/:

• o as in no
• o_e as in rope
• oa like boa
• ow like bow

To help with reading and writing new words, you need to be able to recognise the graphemes and know which sounds they represent.

Activity 1

Some sounds have more than one grapheme. Have a go at this tap and find quiz. Can you find all the different graphemes for the same sound?

Activity 2

Choose six objects in your home and try to write them by sounding out the graphemes that make up the word.

• Try sounding out the graphemes for each word to help you spell them correctly.
• Once you've written the word for each item, circle the different graphemes.