Phonics Word Search
This phonics word search mixes the terms a reading teacher uses, like digraph, blend, consonant and schwa, with words that show each pattern: ship and thumb for digraphs, frog and drum for blends, kite and cube for the silent e.
English spells about 44 sounds, or phonemes, with only 26 letters, so letters have to double up. A digraph is two letters that make one sound, the sh in ship or the ch in chin. A blend keeps both sounds, so you still hear the c and the r in crab. The schwa is the lazy vowel at the start of about and the end of sofa, the most common vowel sound in spoken English.
Some letters are silent now but were not always. The k in knee and the b in lamb were once spoken; the k sound faded from words like knee and knight around the 1600s while the spelling stayed put. In 2000 the National Reading Panel, set up at the request of Congress, reviewed the research on teaching reading and found systematic phonics helped most in kindergarten and first grade.
Free Phonics Word Search Online Game
Play the Phonics word search in your browser, on your own or head to head against a friend in real time. Nothing to install and no account needed – send someone the link and you are both looking at the same grid.
Phonics Word Search Printable Puzzles
Three sheets to choose from, free to print or download as a PDF. Pick a difficulty below, or open the printable Phonics word search page to see all three together, generate a fresh grid, and check the full word list.
Hard
15x15 grid, up to 23 hidden words
Print or Download pdfMedium
12x12 grid, up to 15 hidden words
Print or Download pdfEasy
10x10 grid, 5 words across and down
Print or Download pdf
Puzzle Vocabulary Words
Below you can see all possible words that the topic Phonics has.
Depends on difficulty level you select in the game amount of words hidden in the puzzle will be different.
In Easy game you have to find up to 5 words, medium game can have up to 15 words and hard puzzle can have up to 23 words.
Every time you start a new game - our word search generator will pick random words to build the puzzle.
- Alphabet
- Blend
- Bone
- Car
- Chin
- Clap
- Coin
- Consonant
- Corn
- Cow
- Crab
- Cube
- Decode
- Digraph
- Diphthong
- Drum
- Frog
- Grapheme
- Kite
- Knee
- Lamb
- Long Vowel
- Onset
- Phoneme
- Plant
- Rain
- Schwa
- Seed
- Segment
- Ship
- Shirt
- Short Vowel
- Silent E
- Soap
- Sound
- Stop
- Syllable
- Thumb
- Truck
- Whale