Difficulties with Digraphs
Written English is a code, whereby the sounds in words are represented by symbols which are the letters of our alphabet. The English language uses 44 sounds combined in different ways to make every word in the English language. But we don’t have 44 letters in our alphabet; we only have 26!
In order to make up the shortfall we combine letters to represent the extra sounds. For example, we put s and h together to represent the sound ch as in the word chip.
Two letters representing one sound are called a digraph.
Much of early years education is spent marrying these digraphs to the sounds they represent. Children are taught to visually recognise digraphs so that they can produce the corresponding sounds. So that in the word ship the child doesn’t simply try to blend each letter individually which would produce something that sounds like sss-hip. Similarly the child is taught to encode or write the letter s and h when the word they are spelling contains a sh sound.
There are many digraphs in English and children usually learn them in the early school years without any difficulties. But
Digraphs can cause the dyslexic child great difficulty.
I see this all the time. A child is fairly competent, confident even, when reading words what contain one letter to one sound. As soon as they meet words with digraphs, such as smart, which contains the digraph ar, you can see the child wilt as she blends the sounds s-m-a-r-t and comes up with a word that sounds like sma-ri-tuh; after a few instances like this her trust in the system disappears.
As a special needs teacher who has welcomed many children into my classroom — children who are failing to acquire literacy — I would say that failure to accurately and efficiently link digraphs to sounds is one of the biggest barriers to being able to read and spell accurately. Those words that require only single letters for each sound, such as cat, dog, man, flag, swim, are fairly straightforward and with a bit of practise the dyslexic becomes proficient. Difficulties reveal themselves when the child meets digraphs. Often it is a lack of understanding and proficiency with digraphs that brings children to my classroom.
Children need to understand the concept of digraphs.
The reading scheme Phongraphix has an excellent exercise to demonstrate this to a child. Get the child to draw a square and then a triangle and name the shapes; ditto with the letters s and h. Then you draw a square with a triangle on top and ask the child what it represents. She will volunteer ‘a house.’ She has taken two items and combined them to produce something completely different. This is what happens with the letters s and h which when put together represent the sound that a librarian says when you make too much noise!
Once children understand the principle, then it’s all about pairing the digraphs with their sounds. You can find lists of digraphs on educational websites. Always go for multisensory learning. Get your child to make the digraphs out of playdough, write them in sand, write them with chalk. Point out digraphs that she is learning in words you see when you are out. Or in a favourite story book, have her find a target digraph. And always, always, always have your child say the sound aloud as she constructs or writes, or finds the digraph. Remember, the goal is to pair one sound to two adjacent letters, so that your child acquires automatic recognition when she sees the digraph. This will build up reading fluency.
