grapheme

Everyday

A grapheme is a letter or group of letters that stands for one sound (phoneme) in writing, like «sh» in ship or «igh» in night. tree →

In the lessons

In English and phonics lessons in UK, Australian and New Zealand schools, children learn graphemes and the sounds they make. One sound can be written with different graphemes: the sound «ee» can be ee (see), ea (sea), e (me) or y (happy). Phrases: grapheme–phoneme correspondence (GPC), split grapheme (a_e in cake), digraph (two-letter grapheme), trigraph (three letters).

Examples

• The word «ship» has three graphemes: sh, i, p. tree →
• «igh» in «light» is a three-letter grapheme. tree →
• The split grapheme a_e makes «cap» into «cape». tree →
• Our teacher put the new grapheme on the phonics wall. tree →
• How many graphemes are in the word «boat»? tree →
• The sound «f» can be spelled with the grapheme ph, as in phone. tree →

Note

Countable. A phoneme is a sound; a grapheme is how it is written. A grapheme is not always one letter: «ch» is one grapheme of two letters. Counting graphemes is not the same as counting letters.