Ack! I think I've been teaching phonogram blending wrong! (and a Spalding question)

[rachelpants]

DS has learned his phonograms through handwriting and was ready for more reading instruction. He is segmenting simple CVC words like a champ and spelling tons of them during handwriting practice.

 

Then I read this last night from the Right Track Reading Website:

For example, smooth blending is sounding out the word ‘mast’ as /mmaasst/ instead of a choppy or segmented /m/…./a/…./s/…./t/. In simple terms, blending is smoothly ‘hooking the sounds together’ when sounding out words. Ug…this is exactly how I have been teaching blending for reading. I’ve had DS reading CVC words for practice and I told him to do it the incorrect way (based on the right track reading instructions).

 

 

Spalding has you learn to pronounce the phonograms with very clipped short sounds…so I assumed that is what you needed to use to blend words together as well as to segment them for spelling.

 

We haven’t started the Spalding spelling notebook yet because I wanted to work on reading, blending and fluency first. Does Spalding teach blending at all??? I can’t find it in the Manual or the teacher’s guide? I have the 6^th edition of WRTR and the Kindergarten teacher’s guide (I bought the TG because in eleventy billion places in the 6^th ed of the WRTR it refers to the TG for further explanations of the teaching methods *rolleyes*) The daily lesson plans in the TG gives you words to segment and then tells you to practice blending them together for reading….but I’m very confused about the method.

 

Any ideas????

 

p.s. Here is the link where I read the above info...

http://www.righttrac...m/blending.html

[boscopup]

Spalding doesn't teach blending.

 

I started out having my son sound out each letter by itself, and that did help him to notice each letter, but now I'm using Phonics Pathways, which has you blend the first two letters, then add the next letter, etc. So it would have:

 

s s-a sa sa-t sat

 

/s/ /s/-/a/ /sa/ /saaaat/ /sat/

 

Doing this, both of my younger kids have made a jump from sounding out every cvc word to actually reading the words... both kids in the last couple weeks. One is 6 and the other is 3.75. I had used the book with them both for the same amount of time. They're in different spots of the book (I keep the 3 year old in the easy section where it's mostly two-letter blends or working up to a three-letter blend as above, whereas my 6 year old is in a section where there are longer lists of three- and four-letter words). I was quite surprised when they both started blending their words so quickly instead of sounding them out. My 6 year old had been doing "/s/-/a/-/t/... /sssss/-/aaaaa/-/t/... /saaaaat/... /sat/!" for the last 2 years!!! Now suddenly he and his brother are both immediately saying the word or two letter blend without sounding out each phonogram. Very exciting.

 

So if I had to do it over again, I'd START with a program (like Phonics Pathways, Don Potter's Blend Phonics, R&S Phonics, and others) that works on blending the first TWO letters and then moves to adding the third letter. That has helped so much here. My 6 year old is excited that he can actually read books now! :D

[rachelpants]

Good grief....I sold Phonics Pathways two months ago....lol. We had only done 2 lessons when I decided to do Spalding instead.

 

Thanks for your help! I'll quit looking for Spalding blending instructions ;)

[boscopup]

Good grief....I sold Phonics Pathways two months ago....lol. We had only done 2 lessons when I decided to do Spalding instead.

 

Thanks for your help! I'll quit looking for Spalding blending instructions ;)

 

:lol: Never sell anything!

 

I still have OPGTR even though I doubt I'll ever use it. Oh well. I also have Spalding (two editions). I just hated teaching Spalding. I've tried it with both of my older kids, and they were fine, but I was just hating it. PP gets done here much easier. And I hand spelling over to R&S Spelling. I think it's really that I hate teaching spelling in general. :tongue_smilie:

 

But yeah, you can stop looking for blending instructions. :D Spalding is just a completely different method of learning to read.

[Ellie]

Spalding has you learn to pronounce the phonograms with very clipped short sounds…so I assumed that is what you needed to use to blend words together as well as to segment them for spelling.

 

We haven’t started the Spalding spelling notebook yet because I wanted to work on reading, blending and fluency first. Does Spalding teach blending at all??? I can’t find it in the Manual or the teacher’s guide? I have the 6^th edition of WRTR and the Kindergarten teacher’s guide (I bought the TG because in eleventy billion places in the 6^th ed of the WRTR it refers to the TG for further explanations of the teaching methods *rolleyes*) The daily lesson plans in the TG gives you words to segment and then tells you to practice blending them together for reading….but I’m very confused about the method.

 

Any ideas????

 

p.s. Here is the link where I read the above info...

http://www.righttrac...m/blending.html

 

You'll have the best success with Spalding if you follow the method as closely as possible. Spending time working on "blending" and fluency (fluency in what? knowing the phonograms??) before you starting the spelling words is not how the method works. And why would you work on *reading* before you starting the spelling notebook??? Girl...start teaching the spelling words!!!

[rachelpants]

 

:lol: Never sell anything!

 

I know, right!!??? LOL.

 

You'll have the best success with Spalding if you follow the method as closely as possible. Spending time working on "blending" and fluency (fluency in what? knowing the phonograms??) before you starting the spelling words is not how the method works. And why would you work on *reading* before you starting the spelling notebook??? Girl...start teaching the spelling words!!!

 

 

LOL...I know, right!!?? (again). Ah, Ellie...I love your posts. "Girl...start teaching spelling words!!" LOL.

 

Here's the thing...the TG for Kindy has daily lists of (mostly CVC) words in the lesson plans for the kids to work with while they are learning the phonograms. The guide tells you to model and help the kids segment and blend the words (to become *drum-roll* FLUENT in reading) LOL. Grrr....but there isn't a method given for "blending" like there is for segmenting. There is a big section in the 6th edition about fluency...."Spalding students read high-frequency spelling words daily to develop rapid word recognition, then read text orally to develop fluent and expressive reading."...blah blah blah...I've never taught someone to read before :nopity: ...I don't know how to teach blending! :tongue_smilie:

 

My kids are doomed.