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! 😊

The Resources You Need, All in ONE Membership!

We understand that purchasing resources one by one adds up fast—and as teachers, we know every dollar matters. That’s why our K-2 membership, Launching Literacy, is a smarter and more cost effective option. Our membership gives you everything you need for small group instruction—all in one place—so you can save time, money, and stress.

No more weekends wasted hunting for Science of Reading–aligned heart word resources, phonics lessons, and decodable texts. With Launching Literacy, you simply log in, choose the skill you want to teach, and instantly download detailed, ready-to-use lesson plans and activities.

In just a few clicks, your small group lessons are prepped and ready to teach—so you can spend less time planning and more time making an impact in your classroom. It’s planning made simple, effective, and affordable.

We hope that you found this blog post helpful! Whether you choose to join the membership or not, we are always here to help you in any way we can. Send us an email at: [email protected] with any questions you have!