LearnFromHome Posted December 11, 2016 Share Posted December 11, 2016 Child is having difficulty blending, any reading programs you recommend? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted December 11, 2016 Share Posted December 11, 2016 Is this kid just turned five, five and a half, or about to turn six? Because honestly, if it's the first one and they're not actively begging to learn to read, I'd just sit on it and keep doing pre-reading activities for a while. There's no use in rushing it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted December 11, 2016 Share Posted December 11, 2016 Child is having difficulty blending, any reading programs you recommend? Thanks! I would expect a 5yo child to have "difficulty" blending. What are you using to teach him to read right now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted December 11, 2016 Share Posted December 11, 2016 Child is having difficulty blending, any reading programs you recommend? Thanks! I'd see if your child is ready to start a reading program--this article on readiness skills has a checklist you can download to evaluate that. If not, the Pre-reading program would help prepare your child for learning to read, and if so, you could look into All About Reading 1. HTH! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macmacmoo Posted December 12, 2016 Share Posted December 12, 2016 It took my son a long time to get blending. The first chapter of plaid Phonics book A was our bridge between the explode the code premiers and explode the code 1,2,3 (except we spent two years trying just about everything under the sun) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drjuliadc Posted December 17, 2016 Share Posted December 17, 2016 My son liked readingbear.org for blending and there are several leapfrog videos that helped. I have almost every one and I can't remember which have blending featured. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shand21 Posted December 17, 2016 Share Posted December 17, 2016 My son liked readingbear.org for blending and there are several leapfrog videos that helped. I have almost every one and I can't remember which have blending featured. The only leapfrog video with blending that I can think of is Letter Factory and it was a short segment near the end. It's presented in a very up-beat song that my kids (3&4) love. If your interested, they have all of the movies on netflix. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stibalfamily Posted December 17, 2016 Share Posted December 17, 2016 We used All About Reading 1 with Explode the Code. He didn't blend until he was almost 6 though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindrops Posted December 18, 2016 Share Posted December 18, 2016 Explode the Code and "Primary Phonics" books from www.memoriapress.com 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 I found the best thing for this was just to blend for my child - firstly in real life where no letters/words are around, just by blending nouns in particular while talking to the child and then later pausing after saying the letters and hoping the child will say the blended word. (It took my kids about a month at age 2.5 when I did this for them to start saying the words consistently when I blended them for them) Then I would get my kids to read the letter sounds of cvc words and I would then say them a bit faster for them til they said the word. Finally I would stop the faster blending and see if they could figure it out at their own pace of saying the letter sounds/combinations and only help if they got stuck. Some children do better with covering the whole word with a piece of paper and blending each time a letter is shown: so c - ca -cat for cat rather than c-a-t cat. It really is ok to give as MUCH help as the child needs - make it impossible for them to fail at this stage. Some children who find the letter blending hard get the idea when you get them to blend compounds words: I want some ICE...... CREAM. What do I want - ice-cream! I want to watch BASE........... BALL (Baseball!) This gives the idea that blending is really just saying things rapidly. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyJoy Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 The only leapfrog video with blending that I can think of is Letter Factory and it was a short segment near the end. It's presented in a very up-beat song that my kids (3&4) love. If your interested, they have all of the movies on netflix. "Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory" is a full video devoted to blending. A few Leapfrog titles are missing from Netflix; this may be one of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReadingMama1214 Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Also the word caper video from leap frog does blending too. With silent E Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalusignan Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 I used AAR pre reading program with my younger dd, and I loved how the concept was presented there. The teacher/mom says three sounds (for example: c-a-t) and then the child has to guess what the word is. It was a fun game that we could play together and I honestly attribute this and so many of the other language exploration exercises in that program with her ability to blend at a young age. You could easily take a break, play some low-key 'games' like this and come back to it later. I wouldn't stress over it too much at this young age. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAttachedMama Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 We used AAR to teach blending. We started the Pre-Level program in preschool, and then did AAR 1 kindergarten year. It took awhile for my son to learn how to blend too, but one day it just clicked. :) It was a glorious day! It is a very cool thing hearing your child read a word for the first time. Almost like watching them take their first step or learn to speak. (And just like those two things, it will happen at different ages for different kids.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creekside5 Posted January 28, 2017 Share Posted January 28, 2017 (edited) I would back up and do lots of phonemic and phonological awareness activities. I am loving the idea of Foundations by Logic for English for this purpose. (It is Orton Gillingham/Spalding based) I also second blending words orally without letters. Lastly, this Montessori toy looks awesome: https://www.amazon.com/Montessori-Phonetic-Beginning-Eco-Friendly-Educational/dp/B0069Z3HV4. Good luck it will come! Edited January 28, 2017 by SRoss5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto4inSoCal Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 We have LOE and my twins were not doing so good with blending. I grabbed a cheap book I bought last year but never used called the reading lessons teach your child to read in 20 lessons and they have thrived. It's a large books so the 20 lessons is a little deceiving. We use about 2-3 pages a day and they are blending so well now. I've found just working every day 15 mins a day does wonders. I don't have a lot of time to work with my twins since my older girls take up so much of the day but a little daily goes a long way. I will have them sound out the word themselves but if I can see they aren't hearing it I sound it out with them and they seem to hear it when I sound it out. The farther we get the less I've had to help them. It's crazy that a $16 book is working so much better than the expensive book with all the bells and whistles was working for them although we will probably eventually go back to LOE since we already have it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 Here is my blending page and blending video: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/blendingwords.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bltex Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 (edited) I feel I am in a similar boat with DD#2 (age 4 3/4) so I'll share my experience in case it helps. For DD#1 we started with BOB books and then started AAR1 when we were somewhere through Series 2 of the BOB books. Because she had already mastered blending (somewhere early on in her BOB book experience), the AAR1 lessons were quite easy for her. I am currently teaching DD#2 to read. I tried to start her straight away at AAR1, but with no prior blending practice the lessons just seemed a bit too much of a struggle. She was enjoying them, but I was worried she would ultimately get discouraged. She could sound out each phonogram just fine, but really struggled with hooking them together into a word. Yesterday (after a long time off from reading lessons) I started a different approach--just focusing on VC-ending word families. For example, I sounded out "at" with her. Once she knew what a-t said, she very easily mastered blending all the CVC -at words. (I called it "hooking the consonant to "at" and that seemed to resonate.) Today, I reviewed the -at words and introduced -am words. I followed up with her reading a BOB book that contained -at and -am words. I plan to continue this for -ad, -ap, etc. After that, I will retry AAR1 and see if her blending skills are established enough to continue with it.. Edited May 27, 2017 by bltex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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