Free printable digraph sh phonics worksheets. Five practice activities: decodable passage, word sort, phrasing cards, rapid naming chart, and word search.
A free illustrated mini-book for Digraph SH, plus the same story as a passage sheet for highlighting.
A full-color picture book your student reads on their own. Skill: Digraph SH. Print, cut and staple.
This book is one of 70 Level 2 mini-books.Every book is free to print one at a time, or get all 70 in one file for $14.
See all 70 books →
Beth sat in the sand by the pond. A little crab ran past her. His shell had a crack.
"Oh no," said Beth.
Beth set the crab in her red cup. But he ran back out.
Then Beth got a little box. "There, little crab," she said. "This can be your home." But the crab ran off again.
"I wish I could find a shell for you," said Beth.
She did not rush. She dug in the wet sand with her hand so she would not crush a shell. Then she saw a small pink shell!
Beth set the shell by the crab. He ran up to it. Then he slid right in!
"Now you have a home," said Beth with a grin.
The letters s and h work together to make one sound, /sh/. You can hear it at the start or the end of a word.
Print it full size for the wall, or smaller for a phonics notebook.
36 sh words, sorted by where the sound comes in the word. The printable list and word cards are below.
shack, shag, shed, shelf, shell, shift, shin, ship, shock, shop, shot, shred, shrimp, shrub, shut
ash, brush, cash, crush, dash, dish, fish, flash, fresh, gush, hush, mash, mesh, push, rash, rush, smash, splash, trash, wash, wish
SH words to read, match and write, with pictures. Each PDF has its answer key on page 2.
All 120 blends and digraphs worksheets in one file, with answer keys.
Get the pack for $7 All 6 levels (700+ sheets) for $196 ready-to-print PDFs for this story's digraph sh words. Each one opens as its own file.
Cut-apart word cards to sort: SH at the Start or SH at the End. Answer key on page 2.
Download PDF
A new decodable story with the same digraph sh sounds — each comes with its own set of worksheets.
The SH digraph is a foundational phonics skill where two letters, S and H, combine to make a single new sound, /sh/, as heard at the beginning of "ship" or the end of "fish." This is a crucial step for kindergarten and first-grade students, building on individual letter sounds and preparing them for more complex blends. A common challenge with SH is that young learners might try to pronounce each letter separately, saying /s/ /h/ instead of /sh/, leading to mispronunciations like "s-hip" instead of "ship." They might also confuse it with other similar-sounding digraphs or blends, especially when encountering it initially or finally in words like "shed" versus "said," or "wash" versus "was." Recognizing SH as one cohesive sound is key to accurate decoding and encoding. To effectively practice the SH digraph, utilize these worksheets purposefully. After introducing the /sh/ sound, have your child read the decodable passage "Shelly and the Shag," focusing on fluent reading and identifying SH words like "shell" and "shag." Use the word sort activity to help them categorize words based on whether SH appears at the beginning (ship, shop) or end (fish, wash), reinforcing positional awareness. The phrasing cards are excellent for building fluency and comprehension with short phrases containing SH words, such as "a red shed" or "push the cart." Finally, the Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) chart for SH words will help build automaticity, allowing them to quickly recognize and vocalize words like "rush," "mash," and "cash" without conscious effort.
For more early literacy resources, explore our sight word flashcards, tracing worksheets, handwriting worksheets, and coloring pages.
Printable Scholar
