A Little Background
As you may know by now, I take a systematic approach to reading. In kindergarten, students get instruction with both phonemic awareness and sound-symbol relationships, starting with the letters of the alphabet. As they learn new letters and develop phonemic awareness, I begin teaching them to read VC and CVC words. You can read about that process here. After CVC words, I introduce digraphs with short vowels only (ship, wish, that, chop). Each lesson builds on the last, so when I’m teaching digraphs, they will not be reading or writing the words “peach” or “shark” because I have not taught vowel teams or bossy r. After digraphs, I teach consonant blends, again with short vowels only. At this point, students know 26 consonants and their most common sounds, short vowel sounds, and digraphs (sh, th, ch, ck, and wh). They are going step by step. With this in mind, I can now go into how I teach consonant blends. (At the bottom of this post, you can see my systematic phonics units.)
Step 1: Introduce the concept of consonant blends
When I introduce consonant blends, I usually start with the letter tiles. We review the terms “consonant” and “vowels” first. I always have letter tiles displayed ready to go, either on the big white board with little magnetic tiles or in a pocket chart. I explain that when two consonants are next to each other and they each still make their own sound, that is called a consonant blend. With consonant blends, they each make their own sound, but often they are so close that it is hard to pull the sounds apart.
I build several examples and non-examples and ask my students to give me a thumbs up if they see a consonant blend. For example, if I put s and t together, they give a thumbs up. I will ask, “How do you know”‘ and they will (hopefully) answer, “because two blue consonants are next to each other and each make their own sound”. I would also build digraphs and consonant-vowel as well so they can tell me those are not consonant blends and why. I compare them to digraphs by showing them how consonant blends have the two blue tiles, each making a different sound while the digraphs are just one tile because the two letters work together to make one sound.
I model how to read consonant blends on their own. This can be difficult for students with phonemic awareness issues. Often kids want to insert a vowel that is not there. For example, “cr” might be “car” or “sp” might be “sip”. Practicing saying each sound and blending them together correctly is key!
This is also a good opportunity for kids to come up with words that begin with that consonant blend. If you build “sp”, they might come up with words like “spaghetti” or “spatula”. These are not words they can read or spell yet, but it certainly helps to orally make those connections. You will also hear ideas that are not actually blends but sound like blends to them. That is a great opportunity to stretch out the word to show it does not have a blend.
If you are looking for letter tiles, you can find them for free here. You can also make them with index cards though!
Step 2: Listen for Consonant Blends in words
This is purely a phonemic awareness activity, but an important one.
- I say a word with a consonant blend. Then they repeat it. It’s helpful for them to say the word themselves.
- Next, I model how to separate the word by onset and rime. For example, “st-em”. They repeat, then isolate the consonant blend, “st”.
- After we have identified the consonant blend, they segment those two sounds and write them on their white boards.
- I have my kids “finger spell” or “tap it out”, meaning they tap one finger for each sound.
This is such an important step for your struggling readers because likely those struggling readers have a deficit with phonemic awareness, which makes consonant blends extremely challenging. One mistake I made early on was not doing enough phonemic awareness and jumping to reading words with consonant blends. I do this step several times with my intervention groups. Using manipulatives is so helpful! I always have bingo chips ready to go. Click on the photo to see a video that may be helpful in illustrating this:
I like using picture cards and making it a sorting activity. This resource has TONS of picture cards with consonant blends (and others) to last you more than one lesson. I use different each day so that we can repeat this activity. This picture above shows the headers, “L blend”, S Blend” and “R blend” but the headers below are more specific, like “cr”, “gl”, “st”. After students write the blend on their white boards, we sort the picture card into the correct category.
Step 3: Encoding (Spelling) Words with Consonant Blends
The previous activity sets kids up for success with spelling words with consonant blends because the process is the same. With spelling, it is SO easy to miss the 2nd consonant on accident. For this reason, I teach my students to identify the initial blend first, then sound out the rest of the word. Similar to how we did in the phonemic awareness activity this is how I model:
- I say a word. They repeat the word normally first, then a little slower.
- Give students time to picture the word in their head or say a sentence with that word.
- Next, we separate the onset and rime: st-ep.
- Then, they repeat the consonant blend: “st” and segment those sounds (I sometimes say, “Pull apart those two sounds”) and they finger spell or tap the sounds /s/ /t/ and write the letters that make those sounds on their white boards while I write it on mine.
- Repeat the whole word again. “step”. “st-ep” Using your finger underline the “st” that was just written and as you say “ep” underline the blank space left over. Repeat “ep”, stretch the sounds and write the letters.
After doing several examples together, I pull back a little and let them do those steps on their own.
Some kids do not need as much guidance. Students who are having difficulty with reading and spelling often have issues with phonemic awareness and/or phonological working memory. If you have issues with phonemic awareness, it is difficult to pull those sounds apart. If you difficulty with phonological working memory, you have a hard time holding the word in your head long enough to do the other steps of separating sounds and writing the letters that make those sounds. That is why when I model I am so explicit and step by step. I know that repeating the whole word after each step is important for students struggling with phonological memory. I know chunking the word is helpful for kids with phonemic awareness issues. Then there are the kids who have difficulty retrieving letters that go with sounds. Some have difficulty with all three!
You all know I love sound boxes! They are helpful with words with consonant blends because it reminds students that each consonant makes its own sound, therefore has its own box. I use these printable sound boxes (found here) with small groups. Each student has their own paper and four bingo chips. Instead of finger spelling as we did above, students push the bingo chips into the boxes as they segment the sounds. Then, they push the chips back down and repeat, this time writing the letters in the boxes as they push the bingo chip up.
Step 4: Decoding Words with Consonant Blends
The next step is to model how to read words with consonant blends. I think in the beginning, the best way is to “chunk” the word to accurately sound it out. Often when they try to just say every sound and blend those sounds together (without chunking), they miss one of the consonants in the blend. So, I teach them to read the blend first, blend those sounds together, then read the rest of the word.
This is a visual for the chunking strategy:
- I would build the word using letter tiles. Then I would ask, “Do you see a consonant blend?”. (yes)
- “Since there is a consonant blend in the beginning, I want to read that first. /f/ /l/, fl. (As you say each sound draw a dot under the letters.)
- What’s my consonant blend?” (“fl”) Repeat “fl” as you draw a line underneath those two letters.
- Then go back to the beginning and read “fl-aaaaash” as you draw that final line.
I emphasize how to read my blend first then went back to the beginning to reread it and stretch the rest of the word. It also helps to physically “chunk” the word by moving the consonant blend tiles away from the word while you sound it out. As I mentioned, I always have magnetic letter tiles at the top of white board ready to go, but I’ve also used a pocket chart with letter tiles for word building.
Automaticity Drill
This is an automaticity activity that I do as a warm-up each day as we practice consonant blends. At first, there are only beginning blends. After we practice reading and spelling each consonant blend, it can be added here. Then, after teaching ending blends, I write different word families with ending blends on note cards. Each day, I choose a students to lead the group in quickly reading these.
You should do the same with writing blends for a warm up. Spend a couple minutes saying blends or word families with blends and have your students quickly write them on their white boards.
Other Activities to Practice Reading Blends
You can provide as much guidance as your students need for this activity. Some groups will need your guidance throughout while others will run with it. Give your students white boards or phonics notebooks and ask them to combine the blends with the word families to make as many real words as they can. It gets them reading so many combinations! The bottom sentences are a challenge! They need to choose consonant blends to make the sentence work. I give students time to try to figure it out then I’ll work it out with them. They love it! After writing a bunch of words on their white boards, they partner up and read those words.
Printable Intervention Books
Another resource I rely on is these blend books. My students love getting these books! They each get their own during small group instruction. I love it for planning purposes. It’s all ready to go to use with multiple groups.
This unit is packed with activities, giving your students plenty of much needed practice reading and spelling words. You wouldn’t need to use every single page in your blend book, but it’s nice to have options. Some groups may only need a handful of pages, while others might go through the entire thing before mastering the skill of reading and spelling blends.
Step 5: Building, Reading, and Writing Sentences
That transition from reading words to sentences can be challenging for some readers. I try to mix it up with some sentence building activities. This first one is Build a Sentence. Students match the colors of the cards to the board and build sentences. Some end up being silly, which they think is hilarious! After building a sentence, I’ll ask questions like, “Who is your sentence about? Where are they? What did they do? What word described the (subject)?”
This activity is similar but instead of building sentences word by word, students are given phrases. You can use these phrase cards separately as a fluency drill then you can have students combine them to make sentences.
An all time favorite is always the Sentence Scrambler. These are totally phonetic with a few high-frequency words. This can be a center or a whole group activity using a pocket chart.
I have printable sentences as well. With these, students are practicing phonics skills as they decode, and they are also working on sentence structure.
After reading each sentence, I always ask simple comprehension questions because no matter how “simple” a sentence, it still has meaning and context. I’ll ask them to visualize the sentence. I may also ask prediction or inference questions.
My students love using this Sentence Spin. Sometimes it makes silly sentences and sometimes it makes real sentences. Either way, they are reading words with consonant blends. I also use it as a mini-comprehension activity. Beginning and struggling readers often end up sounding out words but not thinking about what is being read. When using this activity, I always ask, “Who is the sentence about? What is the character doing?” Sometimes I ask them to describe what they are visualizing.
I also give students practice writing phonetically-controlled phrases and sentences with consonant blends. A mistake I made early on was not doing enough encoding and focusing only on decoding. Giving your students opportunities to practice spelling the phonetic elements that they have learned so far is key!
Step 6: Increase fluency with short stories
Phonetically-controlled short stories are a great way for students to practice phonics skills, fluency, and comprehension while developing good strong reading habits and feeling success. With these stories, they do not have to guess their way through. They are using what they have learned and applying it as they read.
I wrote a set of phonetically-controlled short stories. These stories have CVC words, words with digraphs, with a focus on words with consonant blends. There are only short vowels though because at this point that is what I have taught. These stories come in two formats: smaller cards to laminate and regular-sized “print-ready” pages. I tend to use the laminated story cards in small groups…
while the printable version is nice to use if you wanting to use it with your whole class or send home as a homework assignment.
Click here to get these story cards and print-ready pages together OR click here for just the “print-ready” version of the stories.
Resources
If you are looking for a sequence to follow and a more systematic approach, click here for detailed lesson plans, workbook pages, and teaching posters for consonant blends and other closed syllables (CVC words, digraphs, “glued sounds”, etc.)
