Consonant Digraph Words: sh, ch, th, ng, qu, wh, ph, ck

A consonant digraph is two letters that make one sound. There are eight main ones: sh, ch, th, ng, qu, wh, ph, ck — ship, chip, thin, ring, quiz, when, phone, duck. Only qu is a loose fit: /kw/ is two sounds, but q is almost never written without u. (Your child has quietly met a few already: the doubled ff, ll, ss at the ends of short words — puff, bell, miss — are two letters making one sound too, though they’re usually counted separately as doubled letters rather than digraphs.) They’re the next step after the four SATPIN groups in the letter-sound teaching order, once a child reads simple three-letter words comfortably.

All eight sit on one page in our free Digraph Sound Mat, grouped by where each one turns up in a word: start, middle, end. Print it and point to the row you’re working on. No signup.

The eight main consonant digraphs, with word lists

Say each digraph as one sound, then read the list across:

• sh — ship, shop, shell, fish, wish, brush, mushroom
• ch — chip, chin, cheese, chair, lunch, peach, much
• th (unvoiced) — thin, thumb, thick, moth, bath, teeth, path
• th (voiced) — this, that, then, them, there, feather, mother
• ng — ring, king, sing, song, wing, long, bang
• qu — quiz, quit, quick, queen, quilt, squid, squirrel
• wh — when, whip, wheel, whale, white, whisk
• ph — phone, photo, dolphin, graph, elephant
• ck — duck, sock, rock, back, kick, rocket

Position is more predictable than it looks: ck and ng never start a word, and qu and wh never end one. That’s the rule the mat’s three rows — start, middle, end — are built on.

th says two sounds

Both are normal and both are everywhere. The unvoiced /th/ is the quiet one: thumb, thin, moth. The voiced /th/ buzzes: this, that, mother.

Hand on the throat is the whole test. Stretch the start of “thumb” — thhh — nothing. Now the start of “this” — a buzz under your fingers.

You don’t need two separate lessons for it. Most children pick both up from context; just name it out loud once, so your child isn’t thrown when this doesn’t sound like thin.

Say it as one sound, not two letters

The commonest mistake at home is sounding out ship as s-h-i-p. Three fixes:

• Cover the pair with one finger so the two letters get read as a unit.
• Put one dot under both letters, not two — one sound button, one sound.
• Model “shhh,” never “s-h.” Say the digraph the way it sounds inside the word.

Hearing each sound accurately is where a screen genuinely earns its place — one clean sound, played on its own, removes the guesswork for a parent unsure whether it’s /ch/ or “chuh.” Our reading games sound out every letter as your child taps it, with no ads and offline play.

One distinction worth naming out loud: a digraph is one sound, whereas a consonant blend is two sounds said fast that you can still hear separately — shop starts with one sound, stop with two.

When to teach digraphs — and the six quick letters first

Digraphs land after the four SATPIN groups, usually around ages 4–6 (sh, ch, th and ng are UK Phase 3; ph and wh, Phase 5). Just before them come the leftover single letters: j, v, w, x, y, z. These six go fast — a week or two for all of them — with only v and w worth spacing apart. One warning: x is the odd one out. It says /ks/ — two sounds from a single letter, the exact reverse of a digraph. Fox is f-o-k-s. Say it that way and it clicks.

One exception: ck usually arrives earlier, riding along with short vowels in duck, sock and rock. If your child already reads those, they’ve met a digraph. Once digraphs are secure, vowel teams come next.

Questions parents ask

Is ck a digraph? Yes — two letters, one sound, /k/. It never starts a word; it sits right after a short vowel, either at the end of a short word (duck, sock, back, kick) or inside a longer one (rocket, pocket).

Why does qu count as a digraph when I hear two sounds? You do hear /k/ and /w/ — that’s a fair objection. But q is almost never written without u in English, so the pair is always taught, read and written as one unit.

My child says “s-h” instead of “shhh.” What do I do? Cover the pair with your finger and model the single sound. Don’t correct mid-word — let them finish, then re-read the whole word together.

The takeaways

• Two letters, one sound — sh, ch, th, ng, wh, ph, ck, plus qu for /kw/.
• th says two sounds — thumb and this — and both are normal.
• One finger over the pair, one sound button under it — never “s-h.”
• Position is predictable — ck and ng never start a word; qu and wh never end one.
• j, v, w, x, y, z go in around here and go fast — a week or two, total.
• Print the free Digraph Sound Mat — all eight digraphs grouped by position in a word: start, middle, end, one page.