Phonics is a method of teaching reading and writing by developing learners' phonemic awareness, which is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in spoken words.

A vowel is a letter in the alphabet that represents a speech sound made without any closure or blockage of the vocal tract. The vowels in English are A, E, I, O, U.

A consonant is a letter in the alphabet that represents a speech sound made by obstructing the airflow in some way. Examples include B, C, D, F, G.

Blending is the process of combining individual sounds (phonemes) to form a word. For example, blending the sounds /c/, /a/, and /t/ makes the word 'cat'.

A digraph is a combination of two letters that make one sound, such as 'sh' in 'ship' or 'ch' in 'chair'.

A syllable is a single, unbroken sound of a spoken (or written) word. For example, the word 'banana' has three syllables: ba-na-na.

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words, often at the end of lines in poems or songs, like 'cat' and 'hat'.