Blending Letter Sounds

[Clairelu]

Hi all,

 

I am in Reception and have started to doing Jolly Phonics to teach sounds. I am not quite up to 6 a week but we are moving pretty quickly and they have learned the sounds really well. What I am now having a problem with is trying to get them to blend the sounds together to start to either read a simple CVC word or to hear a word that is being sounded out. I have never seen it modelled so am making up blending as I go along. Does anyone have any good ideas on ways to do this?

Thanks!

[Marion]

The JP theory is you say the first sound loudly and the middle and last sound quickly and quietly.

So it would be C - at

The PiPs model suggests telling the children you are talking like a robot and that works quite well too

So it would be c-a-t

 

I find that different children respond to different ways.

Edited November 19, 2006 by Marion

[catma]

blending is really the reverse of segmenting, which splits the sounds into the smallest units (e.g cat is /c/a/t/ and spring would be /s/p/r/i/ng/. So blending is putting it all back together to combine the sounds. This is why you have to be careful when children pronounce the sounds, making sure they don't get the /uh/ sound called a shwa stuck on the end e.g. /l/l pronounced luh. There's lots of different techniques some say the word slowly and then get faster saying it over a few times, some just say it running the sounds into each other - as long as they are understanding what they are doing I don't think there's any one way. It's important also to ensure lots of modelling by you in shared/guided reading to show children how it's done and to allow them opportunities to practise for themselves.

Cx

[Guest]

An idea i've seen used recently is to stick letters with post it notes onto building bricks and then as you sound out the word push them together to illustrate building the word. The idea came from a new story that Ian Beck has done about a wolf that eats words - sorry don't know the title. This week I tried to get my children to build words we had seen/heard in a poem about the sky 'If I could touch the sky' on starfall.com I wanted them to build two or more letter phonic words onto cut out stars we could hang from the ceiling. I asked them what phonemes they needed for the word they had chosen and wrote them onto mini post its for the children. They then built the words. It worked really well. I noticed that if they got the order wrong by sounding out what they had made with them they were quickly grasping the concept and sorting the phonemes into the correct order. More ables began to sound out and write moon, star, grab etc. The poem and the site are worth a look. For sounding out they can have a go at words on here and if they get stuck click on the word to see and hear it sounded out. Good for visual and auditory learners. Only thing I don't like so much about it is that it is an American site so the accent isn't standard English. There again there are lots of variations on that and the kids are used to hearing American accents on TV!

 

AOB

[Guest]

It is hard to get children to blend sounds - I posted a query on this very subject last year so you're not alone! If you think about it there's an awful lot to think about: recognising the letters, saying the sounds that the letters represent and then having to listen for the word as well. I think it's important for children to understand that words are built up of sounds and I think that's sometimes why childen can't 'hear' words because they don't really understand the processes involved. I've been very impressed by 'Reading Reflex: The foolproof phono-graphix method for teaching your child to read' by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness. They advocate working on word-building first of all as this seems to help children to understand how words are constructed from sounds. I have been following this advice and, fingers crossed, it seems to be working well so far.

 

I didn't start teaching the letter sounds until after half-term. I've been doing 4 a week. This year all my children have been given a bag of letters. When I hear them read individually we get out the letters and I'll pick a CVC word that can be made from the letters we've learnt so far. I'll say, 'We're going to make the word 'mop'. Let's say 'mop' really slowly and count how many sounds we can hear.'

 

We say the word in a drawn out way, holding up 1 finger for each sound we can hear. I then draw that many lines on a whiteboard and select the letters needed to build the word and arrange them incorrectly at the top of the board. I'll then say, 'These are all the letters we need for 'mop' but they're all in a muddle. You're going to need to listen carefully to decide which letter goes on each space on the board.'

 

I then draw an arrow over the first space and explain that I'm going to say the word 'mop' very slowly whilst running my finger under the lines I've drawn and they've really got to listen very carefully for the sound they can hear when my finger is under the arrowed space. When I have said the word I ask them what sound they heard when my finger was under the arrow and they have to tell me. I then ask them if they know which letter we use to show that sound. They select it and move it to the first space. This procedure is repeated for the middle and end sounds. I then say, 'Brilliant! You've spelt the word 'mop'! We're going to read the word now, saying all the sounds we can see.' We then run our fingers under the word, saying the sounds 'mmm-o-p' and then say it in a non-segmented way: mop.

 

This has been working well and there are several children who now don't need me to isolate where they need to listen i.e. I can just say, 'Here are the letters for 'Sam' - can you spell it for me?'. Also, some of them are starting to be able to read CVC words and are starting to sound out words in books.

 

Prior to all of this we had been saying words slowly e.g. 'Can you come and find me the picture of the 'zzz-i-p'? I spy with my little eye a 'sh-ee-p'. These are activities suggested in Playing With Sounds and I think they're really useful for training children to listen and hear how words are constructed.

 

I totally agree with Catma about how important it is to ensure that all the sounds are pronounced correctly. I query every time they mis-pronounce anything: 'Did I say 'suh' or 'sss' there? Have another listen!'

 

Sorry about the long and rambling nature of this! Good luck!

Edited November 19, 2006 by Guest

[Clairelu]

Thanks all for your advice, there are always good ideas and I know I can always ask a really obvious question. I like the idea of having the correct letters and rearranging them and using letters with indidvidual reading.

[catma]

Don't forget games like sound buttons, finish it, phoneme frame etc etc all focus on teaching the blending skill and hearing sounds in different positins. All found in playing with sounds or thenolder version progression in phonics (PIPS)

[lizzielou]

I too use jolly phonics and when we are first suonding out and blending we continue to use the actions and play a type of charades game always saying the letter sounds loudly but using the actions to clarify for the unsure. this has proved successful for my children and makes writing interesting as it is very lively with the letter actions and arms being swung all over the table!

[Marion]

hi lizzie and welcome to the forum

[Susan]

hi Lizzie and welcome. Thanks for your first post!

[Guest]

Hello and welcome from me too

[lizzielou]

thanks for the welcomes but i have already been a member for a year but have changed log ons as using lea one!!