5 BLENDING ACTIVITIES TO TRY AT HOME

What is blending?

As your child learns to read, they are taught individual sounds and then how to link them together to form a word. This is called blending sounds. This means that they will learn to look at a short word, such as 'tin' and rather than saying three separate sounds 't', 'i', 'n', link the sounds together and say the whole word in one go. Blending sounds can be a tricky skill to pick up when learning to read, so here are a few cheap and easy ways to practise.

Some ideas to try at home:

1) Use magnetic letters or wooden letters (with vowels in one pot and consonants in another). Pick one consonant, one vowel and another consonant. What does it spell? Is that a real word? Who can make the silliest word with the letters from the pots?

Photo by Ryan Wallace on Unsplash

2) Write as many CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant e.g. pen, cat, sun) words as you can on post-it notes or slips of paper. Mix up alphabet flashcards and lay them on a table. Set a timer for two minutes. How many of the words can you make in that time?

3) Use a small flip note pad and cut into three sections (as below). Write the alphabet in each section. Use your CVC words from the previous activity. Choose one at random and see if you can make the word using the letters from the notepad.

4) Use larger size building blocks and write three-letter CVC words on them. Write individual letters on the small blocks and see if you can match the letters with the words. Erin is learning digraphs at school at the moment so I included a few of these too.

Don't forget to make sure you are constantly modelling blending sounds to your child. Sound out the words together and repeat the blended word a few times. Segment the word again after to keep reiterating the relationship between the phonemes.

Like these ideas? Download the Phonics Bundle for a whole host of activities, ideas and explanations to help you confidently support your child with their phonics learning.