MTTC Lower Elementary (PK–3) Education – Literacy (118) Practice Test

Consonant digraphs are two-letter sequences that represent a single sound, such as wh, th, and sh. An activity that asks students to sort pictures of words beginning with these digraphs by their sounds directly builds phonemic awareness and the connection between oral sounds and written cues. By hearing the initial sound and grouping words accordingly, students reinforce that these two-letter sequences function as units in telling apart different sounds and spellings, which is essential for decoding and early spelling development. The other options involve working with word onsets that are blends or clusters (like str-, spr-, chr-, br-, cr-, tr-, fr-), or they mix writing with broader reading tasks. While those activities can support literacy skills in other ways, they don’t target recognizing and sorting words by specific consonant digraph sounds as clearly or directly as a picture-sorting task focused on wh-, th-, and sh-. This makes the sorting activity the most effective choice for developing knowledge of consonant digraphs.