Sounding Out Success: Practical Tips for Enhancing Your Child's Blending Skills
Watching your child take their first steps into the world of reading and literacy is an exciting journey. However, it's not uncommon for young learners to face challenges along the way. Because learning to read is not an intuitive process. Here’s a little video that explains why.
One common hurdle for children is struggling to blend sounds together in CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. They can say each individual sound “H-A-T” but when it comes time to blend them together, there is hesitation or inability. And that can feel frustrating both for you and for your child. But fear not, there are steps that you can take to help your child overcome this obstacle and develop strong reading skills.
What to do
Individual Sounds - Before diving into blending, it's essential for your child to have a solid understanding of individual sounds. This means their recall is automatic. When they see a letter, they can say the sound it represents in under 3 seconds. Help your child identify and practice saying consonant and vowel sounds in isolation. Make it fun by playing sound-guessing games or using sound flashcards.
Vowel + Consonant Words - One way to pull things back is to have them read words with 2 sounds in them: it, in, if, up, ad, ax, at, am, an, Ed. You can even make up "nonsense words” for them to read: ip, ub, et, ak. Make sure that these nonsense words all include short vowel sounds.
Phonemic Awareness - Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds, known as phonemes, in spoken words. This is not focused on the visual of letters, just the sounds. It is a critical foundational skill for developing strong reading and spelling abilities. Phonemic Awareness is so important that I could write a whole different blog post about it. And I actually have. So if you want to learn even more about it I highly recommend checking out that previous blog post ⬇️
One way to see if your child has a foundation of phonemic awareness is to say a short word like “dig” or “fix”. And ask them to identify the first sound in the word.
I have even created a really easy to implement activity that you can use with your child to practice phonemic awareness.
I have even created a really easy to implement activity that you can use with your child to practice phonemic awareness.
4. Continuous Sounds - These are sounds that continue on. Like /f/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /s/, /v/, and /z/. Have your child try reading words that begin with a continuous sound. This will make it easier for the first two sounds to blend together. Examples: fun, lip, mad, nod, set, vet, zip.
Final Reminder
Every child progresses at their own pace, and it’s okay if your child needs extra support. And it’s wonderful that you are here learning how to help them on their literacy journey. And with your support and encouragement, your child will overcome their challenges and unlock the joy of reading.
