Free Blends & Digraphs Phonics Reference Pack

Free Orton-Gillingham aligned reference pack: consonant blends & digraphs (sh, ch, th, bl, cr, st & more) with word lists and practice.

Before students can tackle more advanced phonics patterns like r-controlled vowels or multisyllabic words, they need to be fluent and automatic with consonant blends and digraphs — the essential building blocks of early decoding. This free resource was created as an accessible starting point for teachers, tutors, and parents who want a structured, Orton-Gillingham style introduction to blends and digraphs before moving into more advanced phonics work.

Drawing on 20 years of elementary and early years teaching experience, this pack distinguishes clearly between digraphs — two letters that combine to make one new sound, such as sh, ch, th, wh, and ck — and blends, where each letter keeps its own sound but is spoken quickly together, grouped here into L-blends (bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl), R-blends (br, cr, dr, fr, gr, tr), and S-blends (sc, sk, sm, sn, sp, st, sw). Teaching these as distinct categories, rather than lumping all “two-letter sounds” together, helps students understand why some letter combinations produce an entirely new sound while others simply blend two existing sounds together.

What’s included in this free blends and digraphs resource:

A teacher explainer page with clear rules and examples for each digraph and blend category
Quick-reference tables showing each pattern alongside its sound and example words
Word lists for digraph words and blend words, ready for reading practice or dictation
Five practice sentences combining blends and digraphs in context
A “What’s Next?” page outlining how blends and digraphs fit into a broader structured phonics sequence, including natural next steps once students are fluent

This free sample is ideal for teachers introducing early decoding skills, tutors assessing a new student’s phonics foundation, SEN and intervention settings, or parents supporting early reading at home. Like all Bright Blends resources, it’s formatted to print cleanly in black and white and is ready for immediate use.

This resource is part of the wider Bright Blends structured phonics series, which continues with resources on r-controlled vowels and syllable division once students are ready to progress beyond blends and digraphs. If you find this free pack useful, please consider checking out our full collection, and a rating or review helps other teachers find this resource too.