Missing Digraphs: Write sh, ch or th

Three letter-team beads, sh, ch and th, sit at the top of this 1st grade page on a line like a string. Below are eight numbered rows, each with a picture and a word printed with a dashed gap where the team belongs. The child says the picture word and writes the missing team in the gap. On the sheet shown the words are wreath, fish, chair, thumb, thermometer, beach, wheelchair and ship, each printed with its team left out, so chair starts with the gap and wreath ends with it. The gaps sit at the start of four words, the end of three and the middle of one, in wheelchair.

Writing the team is the step from hearing a digraph to spelling it. The printed part of each word does some of the work, so the child needs only the two letters, and the picture confirms which word it is. Moving the gap around the word matters: most early practice puts digraphs at the start, and wreath, fish and beach show that the same teams also end words. Wheelchair is a compound word, so its team is really at the start of its second part, which is a helpful thing to say aloud, and chair on the same page makes the link easy to see.

One sheet, eight words, eight teams to write. The three beads stay at the top, so spelling is supported. Wreath has a silent w, so read that word with children who are still sounding out. Ask children to read each finished word back to a partner. The where is the digraph face follows naturally, since it asks the same question about position without any writing, and the read and match face turns the task around into reading whole words.