The sounds that make up the English language are:

The 5 Short Vowel Sounds

• short -a- in and, as, after
• short -e- in pen, hen, lend
• short -i- in it, in
• short -o- in top, hop
• short -u- in under, cup

The 6 Long Vowel Sounds

• long -a- in make, take
• long -e- in beet, feet
• long -i- in tie, lie
• long -o- in coat, toe
• long -u- (yoo) in rule
• long -oo- in few, blue

The R-Controlled Vowel Sounds

• -ur- in her, bird, and hurt
• -ar- in bark, dark
• -or- in fork, pork, stork

Then there are the 18 Consonant Sounds (sounds of the letters other than vowels), but c , q and x are missing as they are found in other sounds. The C sound is found in the k sounds and in the s sound in words like cereal, city and cent. The Q sound is found in ‘kw’ words like backwards and Kwanza. The X sound is also found in ks words like kicks.

• -b- in bed, bad, -k- in cat and kick, -d- in dog, -f- in fat, -g- in got, h- in has, -j- in job, -l- in lid, -m- in mop, -n- in not, -p- in pan, -r- in ran, -s- in sit, -t- in to, -v- in van, -w- in went, -y- in yellow, -z- in zipper

The Blends are 2 or 3 letters combined to form a distinct spelling sound.  The blends sounds are:

• -bl- in blue and black
• -c- in clap and close
• -fl- in fly and flip
• -gl- in glue and glove
• -pl- in play and please
• -br- in brown and break
• -cr- in cry and crust
• -dr- in dry and drag
• -fr- in fry and freeze
• -gr- in great and grand
• -pr- in prize and prank
• -tr- in tree and try
• -sk- in skate and sky
• -sl- in slip and slap
• -sp- in spot and speed
• -st- in street and stop
• -sw- in sweet and sweater
• -spr- in spray and spring
• -str- in stripe and strap

The 7 Digraph Sounds

• -ch- in chin and ouch
• -sh- in ship and push
• -th- in thing
• -th- in this
• -wh- in when
• -ng- in ring
• -nk- in rink

The Other Special Sounds including Dipthongs

• -oi- in foil and toy
• -ow- in owl and ouch
• short -oo- in took and pull
• -aw- in raw and haul
• -zh- in vision

Suggested Reading

• The Do’s and Don’ts of A Spelling Program
• Everyday Word Printables – Dolch
• Fill in the Blank Everyday Word Worksheets

Help Them Learn to Read

Dolch sight words are a list of the 220 most frequently encountered words in children’s literature and are commonly used as a teaching tool for reading, writing and spelling. The list forms a good basis of common words for children to learn between the ages of 5 and 8.

Many of the 220 words in the Dolch list, can not be “sounded out”, and must be learned by sight. Dolch excluded nouns from his main list, but did compile a separate 95-word list of nouns.

Listed in the order of frequency:

Commonly misspelt words: 

accommodation, accidentally, allege, believe, changeable, definitely, embarrass, gauge, harass, heritage, hierachy, minuscule, Parliament, privilege, noticeable, mischievous, necessary, occurrence, rhythm, schedule, separate, supersede,  twelfth, vacuum, weird.