Support early reading and spelling with our c phonics resources for Reception. Pupils can practise recognising the ‘c’ grapheme, saying the /k/ phoneme, forming the letter correctly and using their growing phonics knowledge to read and spell simple words.
Choose from worksheets, games, word-building tasks and practical activities for teaching ‘c’ as part of Phase 2 phonics. Resources can be used when introducing the grapheme, revisiting it later or giving pupils extra opportunities to practise. Explore more Phase 2 phonics resources, or visit our main phonics resources page for teaching materials across Phases 1 to 5.
When ‘c’ is introduced in Phase 2, pupils learn that this grapheme can represent the /k/ phoneme, as heard in words such as cat, can and cot. Teaching helps pupils make a secure connection between the written letter and the phoneme they hear in spoken words.
Encourage pupils to pronounce /k/ as a short, crisp phoneme rather than adding an extra vowel sound. Clear pronunciation makes it easier to blend phonemes together when reading and to separate them when spelling.
Regular practice helps pupils recognise ‘c’ quickly and apply the grapheme–phoneme correspondence with increasing confidence. Our c phonics activities can be used to practise:
Activities can be incorporated into daily phonics lessons, adult-led groups, independent practice or additional support. This makes it easy to choose resources that fit alongside your school’s systematic synthetic phonics programme and the stage pupils have reached.
As pupils build up their bank of taught graphemes, ‘c’ can be combined with earlier learning to read words such as cat, can, cot and cap. Word-building activities give pupils opportunities to look at each grapheme, say the corresponding phoneme and blend the phonemes together to read the complete word.
The process can also be reversed for spelling. Pupils listen carefully to a word, segment it into individual phonemes and choose a grapheme to represent each one. Practising both skills helps pupils understand how their phonics knowledge can be used for reading as well as writing.
Learning ‘c’ also gives pupils an opportunity to develop accurate letter formation. Tracing, guided writing, sensory activities and repeated independent practice can help pupils become familiar with the movement needed to form the lowercase grapheme and connect its shape with the /k/ phoneme.
Continue through the teaching sequence with our full range of Phase 2 phonics resources, including activities for other graphemes, blending, segmenting and early reading. For resources covering the wider phonics journey, visit our main phonics resources page.
In Phase 2, pupils are taught ‘c’ as a grapheme representing the /k/ phoneme, as heard at the beginning of words such as cat, can and cot.
Using ‘c’ alongside graphemes taught earlier in Phase 2 allows pupils to begin reading simple words such as cat, can, cap and cot. The words pupils practise should only contain grapheme–phoneme correspondences they have already been taught.
Useful activities include grapheme recognition, letter formation, oral phoneme identification, word building, blending games and phoneme frames. Revisiting ‘c’ through a mixture of reading, spelling and practical activities helps pupils recall and apply the correspondence independently.
