One of the primary reasons we teach blends and digraphs is to help students become more fluent readers and writers. When students are able to recognize and decode blends and digraphs, they are better able to read words with accuracy and speed. This, in turn, helps them to comprehend what they are reading more effectively. By introducing blends and digraphs to students early on, we are setting them up for success in their literacy skills!
Here are a few tips to help you teach blends and digraphs and the blending of sounds together. We’ve also got a freebie for you at the end, so keep reading!
Blends and Digraphs Picture Sorting
Using pictures to sort for sounds is perfect for phonemic awareness activities. Students are engaged with the pictures and can practice hearing and isolating sounds. They can sort for yes or no that the pictures begin with same sounds. Or sort for specific sounds.
Then add in the phonics element by using the blends or digraphs cards to sort the pictures by.
Use Your Hands
One very effective way I made up for my students to hear the individual sounds in a blend is to use their hands as visuals to represent the sounds. Start with just the palms of your hands showing and apart.
If practicing “bl”, say /b/ and move the first palm forward. Then, /l/ and move the second palm forward. Lastly, as you blend the sounds together say /bl/ and move your hands together until your thumbs or hands touch. This can help students to hear and “see” how to move or blend those two individual sounds together. This is an important step towards building fluency as students read.
For some developing or struggling students, if we do not move them towards blending the sounds together, they can get stuck in the stage of sounding out and pausing between phonemes rather than blending.
Tap It Out
Tapping out the sounds in words is huge for helping students hear each individual phoneme and then being able to attach the correct letter or letters that represent those sounds.
Lots of guided practice during small groups and for reading interventions help students learn this skill. Then, the same activities can be placed into literacy centers or word work stations.
Isolate and Substitute Phonemes
Students actually LOVE and look forward to these kind of phonemic awareness activities! It is phonemic awareness doing a lot of the heavy work building a strong foundation for phonics and decoding skills.
Instruct students to say the word “brick”. Ask them to tell you the first sound.
Next, tell them to take away the first sound- /b/ and add (substitute) /t/. What is the new word? “Trick”. Once students get really good at substituting first sounds, then switch up the second sound. Or switch both beginning sounds.
Also, going back to the first tip, here is where students can really help themselves- remind them they have strategies they have learned that can help them. They can “use their hands”- holding their up their palms they can isolate and switch up sound.
Some students really need this concrete visual to help them with these steps. Our goal would be to get them enough practice, understanding and confidence to move past the point of using these visuals.
Meaningful Practice
To go along with all these phonemic awareness and phonics activities, students need lots of meaningful practice decoding words with blends and digraphs. Lots of practice! And lots of practice does NOT have to mean hours and hours every day. Who wants that?
Meaningful and purposeful practice can lead to solid learning in 10-15 minutes.
This where our Blends and Digraphs Freebie is so helpful! It is a small part of our popular and effective Blends and Digraphs Reading Intervention binder.
Click here and get your blends and digraphs freebie now!
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