A short, decodable story embedding digraph ch words. Students read the passage then highlight all the target words.
Chad and the Ditch
Skill: Digraph CH • Sight Words: the, is, a, and, to, was, it, she, he, they
Coloring page included in PDF
Chad went to play with his pup, Gus. "Let's play catch!" said Chad. He tossed a red ball. Gus ran to fetch it, but the ball fell in a ditch. It was stuck in thick mud. Which way could Gus get it? Gus was sad. Chad went to check the ditch. "I will get it for you, chum," he said. He bent down and got the ball. It had a patch of mud, but Gus was glad.
Circle or highlight all the words with the CH sound (at the beginning or end). How many did you find?
Next step: once your child can sound out these words, have them read a matching decodable mini-book. Each Digraph CH reader is a printable story + coloring page using only sounds they've learned.
The CH digraph is a crucial Phase 2 phonics skill, introducing children to a single sound represented by two letters. Young learners often find this sound tricky because they might try to pronounce each letter individually, saying /k/-/h/ instead of the combined /ch/ sound, as in "chip" or "chop." Another common hurdle is distinguishing CH from similar-sounding blends like SH or even J, leading to mispronunciations like "ship" for "chip" or "ditch" sounding like "dij." Students also need to master identifying CH at both the beginning (initial) and end (final) of words, such as "chat" versus "much," which requires careful listening and articulation practice to solidify this unique phoneme.
Our CH digraph worksheets provide targeted practice to overcome these challenges. After introducing the sound, have your child read the decodable passage "Chuck's Lunch" aloud, focusing on accurate pronunciation of all CH words. Use the word sort activity to help them categorize words with initial CH (like "chin") and final CH (like "lunch"), reinforcing their positional awareness. The phrasing cards are excellent for building fluency; encourage them to read phrases like "rich lunch" or "catch a patch" smoothly. Finally, utilize the Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) chart to build quick recognition of CH words, helping them instantly identify and read words such as "check," "which," and "bench" without hesitation.
