14/09/2026
🌊 Did you know?
Male seahorses carry developing embryos in a special pouch. When the babies are ready, the male gives birth to tiny seahorses called fry.
But there’s something interesting about the word ‘seahorse’, too!
‘Seahorse’ is a compound word made from ‘sea’ + ‘horse’. A seahorse isn’t actually a horse, of course, but its name comes from the horse-like shape of its head.
Even its genus name, Hippocampus, tells a similar story. It comes from the Greek words hippos, meaning ‘horse’, and kampos, meaning ‘sea monster’. 🐴🌊
Can you hear all the phonemes in 'seahorse'?
The graph ‘s’ is representing the /s/ as in ‘sun’
The digraph ‘ea’ is representing the /i:/ as in ‘beach’
The graph ‘h’ is representing the /h/ as in ‘hand’
The digraph ‘or’ is representing the /ɔ:/ as in ‘fork’
The digraph ‘se’ is representing the /s/ as in ‘horse’
👇 Your Turn!
Can you think of another word where the digraph ‘se’ represents the /s/ phoneme? Share it in the comments!
