Graphemes

 Graphemes

Graphemes are the written or printed representations of phonemes, the smallest units of sound in a language. In other words, a grapheme is a letter or a group of letters that represents a single sound (phoneme) in a word. Graphemes can be individual letters like 'a', 'b', 'c', or they can be combinations of letters such as 'th', 'ch', 'sh' in English.

Understanding graphemes and their corresponding phonemes is a fundamental aspect of learning to read and write. Phonics instruction involves teaching the relationship between graphemes and phonemes. For example, in the word "cat," the grapheme 'c' represents the phoneme /k/, the grapheme 'a' represents the phoneme /æ/, and the grapheme 't' represents the phoneme /t/.

Different languages have different sets of graphemes and rules for how they combine to form words. Phonics programs are tailored to the specific grapheme-phoneme relationships in a particular language, helping learners decode written words and improve their reading and spelling abilities.