A phoneme is a distinct unit of sound within a given language, made up of either single letters or letter combinations. These units of sound help distinguish similar words from one another, such as “pan,” “pen,” “pin,” and “pun.” The following collection of worksheets provides picture prompts, and invites your students to add or subtract given phonemes from the word representing the picture in order to create different words. Answer keys are provided for instructors.
Fun Fact: English has between 35 and 47 phonemes (depending on regional variations in pronunciation), including 13-21 vowel phonemes and 22-26 consonant phonemes.