Gifted and Talented Teacher creates high-quality teaching resources and printable teacher resources designed to support calm, organised, and engaging learning environments. From curriculum-aligned teaching tools to functional classroom decor, our resources are classroom-ready and designed to save teachers time.

Read it. Trace it. Write it. Draw it! Two sounds at the start. One big step in reading.

Make phonics practice purposeful with our CCVC Trace and Blend worksheets for words beginning with tr-, dr- and st-: tram, trap, trip, trot, drum, drip, drop, drag, stop, step, stem. Every word starts with two adjacent consonants and is decodable with single letter-sounds; students say every sound rather than learning the pair as a unit. Each Trace and Blend page works on one blend (page 3 tr-, page 4 dr-, page 5 st-); the writing pages mix the three, so students segment every word afresh.

Set 3 of 4. Set 3 holds the hard cases: tr- and dr- are often heard as “chr” and “jr”, and st- is commonly segmented as s-d. Blending sound by sound, with the letters in view, is what sorts these out. The four sets run from the easiest blends to the hardest and finish with a mixed set; use them in order or pick the set your class needs.

Four activities, one set of words

The same words are repeated across the four activities, which run from most to least supported, so you can use them in order or pick the one that suits each student or group. There is no expectation that students complete every page.

• Trace and Blend (supported decoding and handwriting): look at the letters, say each sound, blend to read the word, trace the letters, then unfold to check the picture. The picture column sits behind a dotted fold line so students read before they see it.
• Trace and Write (supported spelling): name the picture, say each sound, write the first two letters and trace the last two, left to right. Blend the sounds to read the word back.
• Say and Write (independent spelling): name the picture, say each sound and write a letter for every sound. Blend the sounds to read the word back.
• Read and Draw (picture-free decoding and comprehension): read the word with no picture to help, trace it, then draw what it means. Two words per page.

What's included

Two print-ready A4 PDFs for your handwriting edition, each 15 pages: a Colour file for colour printing and a Black and White file for photocopying (with a “colour the picture” step for early finishers).

• Cover and a one-page teacher guide: what students do in each activity, why it works (with references), which page carries which blend, and the fold-first tip
• Trace and Blend: 3 pages
• Trace and Write: 3 pages
• Say and Write: 3 pages
• Read and Draw: 3 pages
• Back page

Handwriting editions: NSW and ACT, QLD, SA, TAS and VIC (the Victorian edition includes both VIC Print and VIC Modern Cursive). Tracing letters are dashed in your state's style, and sound boxes support segmenting and blending on every page.

Made for purposeful practice

Grounded in the science of reading and systematic synthetic phonics, these worksheets bring decoding, segmenting, spelling, handwriting and reading for meaning together around one predictable set of words. Adjacent consonants are blended sound by sound, never taught as a chunk, in line with the NSW syllabus and current phonics guidance. In Trace and Blend, students read the letters and blend before they look at the picture; the picture confirms the word rather than giving it away. These pages are supplementary practice to sit alongside your explicit phonics program, not a program in themselves.

Perfect for explicit teaching, small-group instruction, literacy rotations, fast finishers and targeted revision.

Best suited to: Kindergarten in NSW (Early Stage 1), once CVC words are secure. Elsewhere, including the ACT, the Australian Curriculum v9.0 introduces consonant blends in Year 1, so this set suits Foundation students who are ready to extend and Year 1 students for practice, revision and intervention.

Curriculum links: NSW English K–2 Syllabus, Early Stage 1: ENE-PHOKW-01 (blend and segment single-letter correspondences to read and write CCVC and CVCC words), ENE-PHOAW-01 (phonological awareness), ENE-SPELL-01 (spelling) and ENE-HANDW-01 (handwriting). Australian Curriculum v9.0 English: Year 1 AC9E1LY09 (segment words including consonant blends) and AC9E1LY11 (use consonant blends to write words and blend them to read); Foundation AC9EFLY08 (letter formation), AC9EFLY10 (blend and segment phonemes), AC9EFLY11 (letters and their most common sounds) and AC9EFLY13 (use letters and sounds to spell words).

Gifted and Talented Teacher creates teacher resources designed to lighten the load and classroom decor that lifts the room.