Teach Consonant Blends

Yesterday I helped a student I tutor practice reading words with beginning consonant blends from books before reading. Blends can be tricky for some early readers. Many children like to stop after the first sound in a word. This stopping after the first sound can be a result of too much word family learning. Blending more than one sound without pausing helps a reader hear a word better. Have you heard of body-coda blending?

A reader can learn to see and blend consonant blends together without pausing.

Reading consonant blends quickly together before attempting the rest of a word can be taught by covering up other parts of a word in a book to only show the blend, separating the blend when writing a word, or using magnetic letters to separate the blend.

The books I used to teach and practice consonant blends in these pictures came from a ten book series written by Nora Gaydos. I love all her books! I used the stories: Drips and Spills and Hop, Frog, Hop from the Playful Pals Level 1 Phonics Reader Set.

You can find more information I share about teaching reading on my Parent and Child Reading Assistance Website.  

Teach Consonant Blends

Practice Stretching Sounds to Read Words

Currently I'm tutoring a student with reading once a week. Here is an activity we did together today. The videos show me using magnetic letters. My student's mom chose to use the book page without magnetic letters to practice stretching and blending sounds to read words from p.59 in Phonics Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling at home. We'll continue to use magnetic letters during tutoring sessions. This book is a great resource for easy quick reading practice. I used Phonics Pathways to teach my daughter to stretch sounds and read words.

Practice Stretching Sounds to Read Words

Teach Short Vowel Sounds with Free Online Books From Starfall

Learning short vowel sounds is an important step for beginning readers.

The most common patterns with short vowel sounds are CVC and VC.

The V stands for vowel and the C stands for consonant.

Starfall has free access to some books with animation and sound. If you move the mouse over the pictures you'll find spots to click. There will be an action that will help keep a child interested in reading the stories over and over. There are five books that focus on short vowel sounds. The free online versions allows a reader to click on a word for help if needed.

Here's one of the books I ordered from Starfall.

CVC: Zac, rat

VC: is

CVC: Zac, sat, can

VC: on

CVC: ran, jam

VC: ants

You can purchase a boxed set with Zac the Rat. The set includes 15 books.

You can find this set with short vowel sounds and some high frequency words in Starfall's online store.


My favorite resource books to teach phonic skills to children are Phonic Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling and Phonic Pathways: Simple Exercises to Improve Reading Fluency. I've used them with my own children and students I tutor from my home.

Here are some pages from Phonic Pathways: Clear Steps to Easy Reading and Perfect Spelling that teach short vowel sounds.

I copied this page onto heavy paper to make a bookmark. This is a great tool to help readers remember short vowel sounds. (a - ant, e - exercise, i - itch, o - octopus, u - umbrella)

I like how a reader is taught to blend from beginning to end. Teaching a reader to blend to the vowel instead of stopping after the first consonant sound is called body-coda blending. The hyphen between letters in this book indicate a reader pause.

Phonics Pathways Boosters includes a 35 minute CD to demonstrate the individual sounds letters and letter groups make. It is sometime difficult even for adults to hear and make separate sounds in words.

Teach Short Vowel Sounds with Free Online Books From Starfall

Magnetic Letters Can Be Organized And Used To Teach Reading

I've made posts describing ways to use magnetic letters when teaching a child to read.

Magnetic letters are powerful tools!

Many teachers and parents find keeping magnetic letters organized difficult. Do you?

Here's a simple way to keep magnetic letters organized! Find a 24 compartment box in the hardware, automotive, craft, or fishing tackle section of a store. I found this one in the fishing tackle section of a sporting goods store. I've also found some for under five dollars in the automotive section of Walmart.

File folder labels work great to label compartments. I use red and blue markers, because I use color coded magnetic letters. Any color of magnetic letters will work though. Since there are 26 letters and only 24 compartments, the letters w and x and y and z are combined in the last two compartments.

This picture shows a set of durable foam magnetic letters with a layer of magnet firmly attached to the back. Wouldn't you love to have letters organized like this for easy access?

The letters w and x, and y and z share.

The next pictures show a few ways to play with words. Letters can be used on the floor, table, or an upright magnetic surface.

So what are you waiting for? Organize some magnetic letters and get using them more often!

Magnetic letters are fun and effective tools to teach reading.

Magnetic Letters Can Be Organized And Used To Teach Reading