Phonics Blending

[Momma4]

Hi, 

 

My son is 5 years old and we recently started going through The Ordinary Parents Guide To Teaching Reading. We're on lesson 40 and he seems to be enjoying it so far.  He is my eldest son and I've never taught reading before so I wanted to check that his progress for where he is in the book is okay, and that we don't need to pause for review.

 

Basically, when he reads he will pronounce each individual letter and then say the word correctly in full, i.e.   'h' 'o' 't' = 'hot'. Theres no slow blending just the whole word, I think this is good but should he still be saying each letter individually? Everything is at his pace obviously but I'm just wondering if he's still pronouncing each letter first, do I need to pause for review?? I kind of think he's doing really great but when I watch videos of children they are slowly blending the letters into the actual whole word rather than pronouncing each letter and then saying the whole word. 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

xxx

[HomeAgain]

It will happen with time.  It's a shortcut skill, rather like in math children learn 'counting on' at about age 6-  where they no longer have to count from the very beginning to add two numbers together but can continue on after.

 

I wouldn't pause necessarily, but I would add in fast/slow games to help aid the process.  Say a word very slowly and have him take a few seconds to think, then say it fast back to you.  Then its his turn to say one slowly and you say it fast.

[mom2bee]

Is he saying the letter NAME or the letter sound?

If he is saying the sounds, then reading the word then he is doing more than fine, he's doing super. Saying each sound and "hearing the word" is blending. Many children can not hear it mentally unless they say it vocally. Your son sounds like he's doing well.

[Momma4]

Thank you for your replies.

 

He is saying each letter sound and then following it immediately with the whole word. When he says the whole word, theres no hesitation, no slow blending, just the whole word; it sounds the same as if I read it.  He's a very auditory learner and he gets the word immediately, he just seems to say each individual letter sound first.  With sight words such as 'the' he doesn't pronounce the letter sounds he just says the word.  

 

Okay, well my mind is at ease now! Thank you ladies.

xx

[forty-two]

Is he saying the letter NAME or the letter sound?

If he is saying the sounds, then reading the word then he is doing more than fine, he's doing super. Saying each sound and "hearing the word" is blending. Many children can not hear it mentally unless they say it vocally. Your son sounds like he's doing well.

 

Probably this - that he's blending in his head (which is a more advanced skill than blending aloud) - but it could also be a result of him reading by sight, or being able to mentally put the sounds together into a word he's heard before (which is good, but is different from being able to blend sounds together).  My oldest dd learned to read through phonetic teaching despite not being able to blend - it was a combination of reading by sight and phonetic pattern matching - and she did hit a wall with reading unfamiliar multisyllable words because of it (couldn't blend the parts together, not even orally). 

 

It's one thing to learn to read without blending, and it's another thing entirely to be *unable* to blend.  So in your shoes I'd play a few oral blending games to see if your ds is *able* to blend.  Say the sounds of a word individually: /c/ /a/ /t/, and ask him to "say it fast" to figure out what word it is.  You can also ask him to add a sound to the beginning or end of a cvc word:  "add /s/ to the beginning of /lid/ - what do you get?"  "add /d/ to the end of /an/ - what do you get?"  If he can answer all those without blending out loud, maybe try using nonsense words, because they are by definition words he doesn't already know.  ("/v/ /a/ /m/ - say it fast.")  Probably he's blending in his head and doing just fine, but it's good to know if he's compensating well for not being *able* to blend.

 

 

ETA: He's an auditory learner?  That ups the odds that he's blending in his head instead of having problems.  My dd that couldn't blend but learned to read in spite of it was *very* visual.  My auditory learner who couldn't blend has had to go through a year's worth of practice of blending cvc words, and still blends aloud for unfamiliar words.

Edited December 14, 2015 by forty-two

[Momma4]

Mom2bee - your suggestions are really very helpful.  I have feeling that he's able to put the words together that he's heard before. I'll definitely try the things you've mentioned.  

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

Thank you, 

 

Blessings

xxxx

[ReadingMama1214]

My daughter is at the same lesson in OPGTR and blends similarly to your son. She says each individually sound and then says the word. She's starting to recognize some of the words and is able to read them by sight I assume. For example, she's pretty quick to read "cat" and doesn't usually sound it out.

 

I thought that she was blending and it wasn't until your post that i thought she might not be blending. We're able to read all CVC words, but haven't moved on to adding "s" to words and I think she may struggle.

 

How do you tell the difference between blending and a problem? We play blending games where I say sounds and she has to say the word. Usually she just says it quickly if I say /c/ /a/ /t/ she immediately responds with "cat" or whatever word.

[forty-two]

How do you tell the difference between blending and a problem? We play blending games where I say sounds and she has to say the word. Usually she just says it quickly if I say /c/ /a/ /t/ she immediately responds with "cat" or whatever word.

You could try giving her nonsense words to blend - she wouldn't have heard them before and so would have to figure them out some way or another. You could also do the train game - it's what taught my dd7 to blend. It's where you write, say, 'a' and 't' on different bits of paper, set them down several inches apart, and say the sounds as you scooch them together. /a/............./t/, /a/......../t/, /a/....../t/, /a/..../t/, /a/../t/, /a/ /t/, /at/. For cvc words, you could do /sa/ and /t/. (With dd7, for 'sat', we'd train together /s/ and /a/, and then train together /sa/ and /t/.)

 

You could also try oral blending of syllables: /in/ /cred/ /i/ /ble/

 

But if she hasn't been having any troubles learning to read, I wouldn't borrow trouble :grouphug:. I mean, my dds had *lots* of signs of trouble with phonemic awareness - blending is just one of them. (They were late to get rhyming, and tended to switch around or add/drop syllables in longer words, and once they had a wrong pronunciation in their head, it was extremely hard to correct, amongst others.) Learning to read hasn't gone smoothly, not from the beginning - it was never a matter of just sitting down and doing the book. I mean, if your dd moved from letter sounds to cvc words easily, if she's never given you reason to think there's a problem - there's probably not a problem :grouphug:.

[Momma4]

Probably this - that he's blending in his head (which is a more advanced skill than blending aloud) - but it could also be a result of him reading by sight, or being able to mentally put the sounds together into a word he's heard before (which is good, but is different from being able to blend sounds together).  My oldest dd learned to read through phonetic teaching despite not being able to blend - it was a combination of reading by sight and phonetic pattern matching - and she did hit a wall with reading unfamiliar multisyllable words because of it (couldn't blend the parts together, not even orally). 

 

It's one thing to learn to read without blending, and it's another thing entirely to be *unable* to blend.  So in your shoes I'd play a few oral blending games to see if your ds is *able* to blend.  Say the sounds of a word individually: /c/ /a/ /t/, and ask him to "say it fast" to figure out what word it is.  You can also ask him to add a sound to the beginning or end of a cvc word:  "add /s/ to the beginning of /lid/ - what do you get?"  "add /d/ to the end of /an/ - what do you get?"  If he can answer all those without blending out loud, maybe try using nonsense words, because they are by definition words he doesn't already know.  ("/v/ /a/ /m/ - say it fast.")  Probably he's blending in his head and doing just fine, but it's good to know if he's compensating well for not being *able* to blend.

 

 

ETA: He's an auditory learner?  That ups the odds that he's blending in his head instead of having problems.  My dd that couldn't blend but learned to read in spite of it was *very* visual.  My auditory learner who couldn't blend has had to go through a year's worth of practice of blending cvc words, and still blends aloud for unfamiliar words.

 

 

So, I said C/A/T to him individually and he immediately said 'CAT', he didn't need to think about it.  Then I said A/N and told him to add D to the end and he immediately said 'AND'.  Then I said L/I/D and told him to add S to the end and he again, immediately said 'LIDS'.  Then I gave him the nonsense word letter V/A/M and he looked at me and said VAM - what does that mean?! 

 

Like ReadingMama's little one, he is also starting recognise words like CAT, MAT, SAT, ON and a few others without needing to sound them out, so I'm thinking he's doing okay :) 

 

Thank you for all your help everyone, its really help set my mimd at ease.

 

Good luck with the rest of the book Readingmama.

 

xxxx