What are phonograms?

A phonogram is like a letter that has its own special sound or group of sounds.

Imagine you're playing with building blocks, each block is a phonogram, and when you put them together, they make words! Just like how different colored blocks can build a house or a tower, phonograms help build real words in reading and writing.

How Phonograms Work

Some phonograms are just one letter. For example, the letter b makes the sound /b/, that's easy to remember!

Other phonograms are made of more than one letter. Like sh, which makes the /ʃ/ sound (like in "ship"). Or th, which can make two different sounds: the /θ/ sound like in "think" or the /ð/ sound like in "this."

When you know these phonograms, it's easier to read and spell words, because you're using little blocks of sound that fit together, just like your favorite building blocks!

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Examples

  1. A phonogram is like a picture of a sound, such as 'a' representing the /a/ sound in the word 'cat'.
  2. The letter 'b' can be a phonogram that makes the /b/ sound in 'bat'.
  3. Phonograms help children learn to read by showing how letters connect to sounds.

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