Phonics Practice Worksheets
Twelve word-based phonics pages covering short vowels, long vowels, consonant blends and advanced vowel patterns. Spanish sheets use syllable and sound-letter patterns natural to Spanish.
Ages 5-8
Updated October 2026
Curated by 
Poppy Fox
Short vowels
Three sheets on the five short vowels, built from words a child can sound out whole: map, hen, pig, fox, sit, leg, cup, sun, hop, jam. Ten words shared across the three, so each one comes back in a new job.
Short vowels, practice 1
Eight short vowel words to copy on ruled lines and ring the vowel in: map, pig, sit, leg, sun, fox, cup, hop.
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Short vowels, practice 2
The vowel is gone from all eight: m_p, h_n, p_g, f_x, s_t, l_g, h_p and j_m, with the bank alongside to check.
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Short vowels, practice 3
Hen, map, jam, pig, fox, cup, leg and sun to split into two groups, then a line for the rule used.
Download PDFLong vowels and teams
The step from one vowel to two: cake and kite split the vowel with a final e, while seed, rain, boat, moon, feet and play use a team. Practice 3 asks for sentences here, not sorting.
Long vowels and teams, practice 1
Copy cube, cake, home, moon, seed, play, rain and boat, circling the long vowel spelling inside each word.
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Long vowels and teams, practice 2
Gaps cut straight into the vowel team: bo_t, c_be, pl_y, s_ed, ki_e, r_in, fe_t and c_ke.
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Long vowels and teams, practice 3
Six sentences to write from home, kite, cake, feet, rain, seed, moon and play, on eight numbered lines.
Download PDFConsonant blends
Two consonants at the front of a word, said fast but both still heard: crab, stop, step, frog, flag, plug, drum, grin, clap and brick. Sorting into two groups returns in practice 3.
Consonant blends, practice 1
Crab, stop, frog, flag, plug, drum, grin and clap copied out one per line with the opening blend circled.
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Consonant blends, practice 2
Blend words missing one letter each, f_ag through fr_g, and st_p is printed twice: stop and step both fit.
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Consonant blends, practice 3
Step, plug, grin, flag, brick, crab, drum and frog to sort in two, with brick unique to this sheet.
Download PDFAdvanced sound patterns
The spellings left over once the short and long vowels are settled: ar, or, ur and ir in farm, fork, turn and bird, then oi, ou, ai, oo and ch in coin, cloud, train, book and chair.
Advanced sound patterns, practice 1
Eight words carrying ar, or, oi, ur, ir, ou and ai to copy: farm, star, fork, coin, turn, cloud, bird, train.
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Advanced sound patterns, practice 2
One letter out of bo_k, f_rm, co_n, f_rk, st_r, t_rn, c_air and cl_ud, four of them r-controlled.
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Advanced sound patterns, practice 3
Sentences built from turn, chair, fork, cloud, book, star, coin and farm, the same eight words as practice 2.
Download PDFWhich sounds each group covers
Group one stays inside three letter words with a single vowel in the middle: map, hen, pig, fox, sit, leg, cup, sun, hop, jam. Group two adds a second vowel, either a silent e in cake and kite or a team in seed, rain, boat, moon, feet and play. Blends come third: crab, stop, step, frog, flag, plug, drum, grin, clap, brick, where both consonants are still heard. Last come the spellings most programmes leave until the end, ar, or, ur and ir in farm, fork, turn and bird, then oi, ou, ai, oo and ch in coin, cloud, train, book and chair.
The same three jobs in every group
Practice 1 is always copying, with a circle round the pattern being practised. Practice 2 removes one letter and hands back the word bank to check against. Practice 3 is the one that changes: groups one and three ask for a sort into two groups and a written rule, groups two and four ask for six sentences. A child who has finished one group already knows what the next one wants, which is the point of printing them in order.
Why the words keep coming back
The three sheets in a group share their word bank on purpose. Any two of them overlap by six words out of eight, and the three together draw on ten words in total. So a word is met three times in three different jobs: read and copied, rebuilt from a gap, then used in a sentence or weighed against its neighbours. Four words per group turn up on all three sheets. Group four is the extreme case, where practice 2 and practice 3 run the identical eight words.
What goes wrong
Short e and short i swap places, so hen and pig are worth checking first. On the blend fill-ins the missing letter does not sit in the same place twice: sometimes it is the second consonant (f_ag, c_ab, g_in) and sometimes the vowel (st_p, dr_m, fr_g). One of those, st_p, is printed twice on that sheet, and both stop and step are in the bank, so either answer is right.
