Explore our h phonics resources for Reception, with worksheets, games and practical activities for teaching the ‘h’ grapheme and /h/ phoneme. Pupils can practise recognising ‘h’, forming the letter correctly and applying their phonics knowledge when reading and spelling simple words.
Use these resources when ‘h’ is first introduced, as part of regular phonics practice or to revisit learning with pupils who need further support. Find activities for other graphemes in our Phase 2 phonics resources collection, or explore teaching materials across Phases 1 to 5 on our main phonics resources page.
During Phase 2 phonics, pupils learn that the grapheme ‘h’ represents the /h/ phoneme heard at the beginning of words such as hat, hen and hot. They practise making the connection between the written grapheme and spoken phoneme before applying this knowledge in simple words.
The /h/ phoneme is produced with a gentle breath of air and should be modelled without adding an extra vowel sound. Accurate pronunciation helps pupils blend smoothly when reading words beginning with ‘h’.
A mixture of oral, reading, writing and practical activities can help pupils become familiar with ‘h’ and recall it more readily. Our h phonics resources support practice with:
Resources can be incorporated into whole-class phonics sessions, small-group teaching, independent tasks or targeted practice. Choose the activities that best fit the point pupils have reached in your school’s systematic synthetic phonics programme.
Once pupils have learned ‘h’, they can combine it with familiar graphemes to read words such as hat, hen, him and hot. Encourage pupils to say the phoneme represented by each grapheme before blending the phonemes together to read the word.
Word-building activities can then reverse the process for spelling. Pupils segment a spoken word into phonemes and identify the graphemes needed to represent them. Practising reading and spelling together reinforces how ‘h’ functions within words.
Alongside learning to recognise ‘h’, pupils can practise forming the lowercase letter through tracing, guided writing and practical mark-making activities. Repeated practice helps pupils become familiar with its shape and develop the control needed to write ‘h’ independently.
Browse our complete range of Phase 2 phonics resources to find activities for other graphemes, blending, segmenting and early reading. You can also visit our main phonics resources page for resources covering Phases 1 to 5.
The grapheme ‘h’ represents the /h/ phoneme in words such as hat, hen and hot. It is introduced during Phase 2 as pupils build their knowledge of grapheme–phoneme correspondences.
The /h/ phoneme should be pronounced as a gentle breath of air without adding an extra vowel sound. Modelling the phoneme clearly helps pupils blend it accurately with the phonemes that follow.
Using ‘h’ alongside previously taught graphemes, pupils can read simple words such as hat, hen, him and hot. The exact words used should reflect the grapheme–phoneme correspondences pupils have already been taught.
