Bringing Phonics to Life: How to Teach Hard and Soft C & G

Are you looking for a fun and engaging way to teach the 2 sounds of the letters C and G? This blog post in our Bringing Phonics to Life series, is here to help!

How can I bring phonics to life with the 2 sounds of C & G?

Food! Food always gets our attention, right?! Try linking the hard sound to hard pretzels, and the soft sound to soft pretzels. This will definitely make a memory for your students, and will help them remember this more complex rule!

Better yet, grab a bag of hard pretzels and a couple soft pretzels (cut into small bites) and have your students enjoy eating them while they learn about these special letters.

Now let's get into what makes these letters special and a chant you can use with your students to help them remember!

Why are the C & G special consonants?

The letters C and G are special because they can each make two different sounds: a hard sound and a soft sound.

Hard C= /k/, Soft C= /s/

Hard G= /g/, Soft G= /j/

How can you tell when the letters C and G will make their hard or soft sounds?

To figure out whether the letters will make their hard or soft sound, teach your students to look at the letter that comes after the C or G.

Here's the rule for the hard sounds:

 
And here's the rule for the soft sounds:

 
It's really that simple! 

How can I help students remember these rules?

We like to use a fun, rhyming chant with our students to help them remember. Here's how it goes....

"Soft C takes the Y, I and E.

Hard C takes the other 3!" (A, O, U + consonants)

When should you teach these sounds?

In our scope and sequence at Up & Away Literacy, we teach the soft C & G consecutively after most syllable division rules have been taught, since they are commonly found in words with 2+ syllables (especially words with the soft g). However, there is no absolute right or wrong time to teach them. We would just recommend waiting until your students have a very firm grasp of the hard sounds. When we first introduce the letters and sounds in Kindergarten, we start with the hard sounds only so we don't confuse students. Then, later in the scope & sequence, the soft sounds are introduced.
 

Activity Ideas

Practicing this concept can be as simple as...

• Writing a word on the board, and having students walk to one side of the room if the C or G is hard, or walk to the other side if it's soft.
• Writing a word on the board, having students copy the word down and then circle the letter that comes after the C or G with a fun gel pen, marker, etc.
• Giving students a hard and soft item to hold in their hand (a cube or a cotton ball). After you write a word on the board, they determine if the letter C or G is hard or soft, and then they hold up their ball or feather to show you!
  
  

Time for a FREEBIE!

Help your students remember hard/soft C & G with our freebie anchor charts. Click the image below to get your free download of a Hard/Soft C and Hard/Soft G poster! Enjoy! 😊

Done-For-You Resources!

We know how many hours you work past your contracted time. We know how much you care about your students' progress. We know that you're tired and could use a hand. That's exactly why Launching Literacy was born.

You may already have a phonics curriculum that you have to follow, but often times the section on small groups and differentiation is slim (if it exists at all). And we both know that real growth happens in well-planned small groups. That's where Launching Literacy comes in!