SH phonics worksheets

sh makes one single sound — /sh/, as in ship, shop and fish. It's usually the first digraph children meet, because the sound is easy to hear and fun to make. This free printable helps them spot it, read it and write it.

One page. Find-and-circle, read-aloud and tracing for the sh sound.

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What's on the sheet

Activity 1 — Find and circle. Twelve words in a grid; the child circles the words containing sh (ship, shop, shell, fish, wish, shut, cash, wash, shed) among look-alike distractors.

Activity 2 — Read aloud. Five featured sh words, each with a colorable dot beneath — the child reads each one and colors the dot.

Activity 3 — Trace. Six traces of sh across the page, the first solid, the rest light grey.

Parent note. A short tip on the /sh/ sound and where it appears in words.

How to teach the /sh/ sound

sh is two letters but one sound. The tactile cue is simple: round your lips and breathe out, like shushing someone. That's /sh/. Once children can make the sound, the teaching sequence is say it, find it, write it:

• Say it. Model the shushing gesture. Let them hold a hand near their mouth and feel the breath.
• Find it in reading — at the start AND end of words. Ship starts with /sh/; fish ends with it. Both patterns appear on the sheet.
• Write it. The tracing activity builds the motor memory to write sh as a unit.

When this is the right level

Use this if:

• Your child reads CVC words confidently
• They know their single letter sounds
• They're meeting digraphs in reading (ages 5–7)

Skip this if:

• They're still learning single letter sounds — start with the Magic 7 set
• They already read multi-syllable words — move on to long vowels

Related resources

• Consonant digraph worksheets — the full sh, ch, th, ng and ck hub
• CH phonics worksheets
• TH phonics worksheets
• CK phonics worksheets
• CVC words worksheets

Common questions

My child reads "ship" as "sip" — why?

They're reading s and h as two separate letters instead of one sound. Cover the rest of the word, point at sh, and say /sh/ together. Then reveal the rest: sh-ip. Repeat with a few more sh words until the digraph clicks as a single unit.

What's the difference between sh and ch?

sh flows — you can hold it: shhh. ch stops in a sharp burst, like a train: ch! Practise ship/chip and shop/chop aloud so the contrast is clear.

Are these worksheets free?

Yes — free for personal, classroom and homeschool use.