Having trouble blending

[ajfries]

My DS will be 5 in November so I know that it's really early for me to expect him to be reading. Logically, I know this. He's been working through The Reading Lesson & is on lesson 4. He does really well with word families, knows his letter sounds fluently but has trouble blending them, even CVC words. I get frustrated...not with him, but with myself because I just don't know how to explain it. So I've just been modeling. He does want to read, and I've been following his lead but I worry that he's going to get flustered & burn out.

 

I guess my question is this- should I drop The Reading Lesson for a bit? Switch to something else (OPGTR comes to mind)? I really don't think the program is the problem...but it doesn't exactly give me a lot of hand holding. I just keep thinking that if I could explain it in a way he can grasp he'd be off and running. But maybe he's just not at that stage developmentally. Is this one of those things that "just click"?

 

 

[mrs.m]

Take a break and read aloud to him. He may not be ready to move on and another program probably won't fix that. I found that worked with my DS in the early stages. The more I delayed, the less frustrating it was for both of us and he learned it quickly too.

[ajaabney]

He may be too young, but it may also be something that doesn't come naturally for him.  My son was still having trouble with blending at 8 years old and we finally started memorizing the list of blends and it made a huge difference in his reading ability.  It wouldn't hurt to at least try a couple and see if that makes an improvement.  I was also not a fan of having kids memorize the most common 300 words, but that also really helped with fluency.  We also used OPGTR, starting at 5.

[Tracy]

A child needs to be able to blend orally before they can do it reading.  If you give your dc a word, like "cat," can he break it down orally into /k/ - /a/ - /t/?  If he cannot, then you need to back up a step and see if he can tell you what the word is if you give it to him broken down.  That is, you say /k/ - /a/ - /t/, he tells you "cat."  If he still struggles with these, then you can back up even further and do syllables.  For example, you say /pen/ - /sil/, and he says "pencil."  These are the foundational skills he needs to be able to blend words while reading.  

 

You can play a game with it.  Find a container, and fill it with objects that have only 2-3 sounds (or syllables if the individual sounds are too difficult).  I used toys for words like dog, cat, doll, ball, cheese, apple.  I added other objects, like pen, shoe, sock, shirt, tie, etc.  You get the idea.  Then you just say you are playing a game and see if he can find the objects you say.  When he can do that well, then he gets to do the same thing to you.  (Kids always like telling mom what to do.)  As he gets better, you can move to 4-5 sounds in a word.  It is something you can even do in the car, and the child doesn't even realize that he is learning to read.  I wouldn't begin formal reading instruction at that age unless and until the child can do this.  

[8filltheheart]

There are pre-reading skills that are normally evident before a child can read phonetically (which is different from whole word reading.) These skills are signs of brain maturity, not intelligence.

 

Some of the markers are rhyming, sequences/patterns, initial sound recognition, final sound recognition, etc.

 

A child might have learned all their sounds, letters, etc and not be able to read for another 2 yrs. Letter recognition is a simple recall skill. Blending requires different mental connections. Playing rhyming games, playing games w/phonetic awareness (like I Spy looking for objects that start or end with the same sound) can help build phonetic awareness. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing gets you in the same place in the same amt of time.

[MerryAtHope]

Yes and yes to Tracy & 8FillTheHeart's posts!  My kids also used to love to give me sounds to blend into a word. Usually they didn't make a word, but it would make them laugh to hear me try!  I would work on the ideas in these two posts & then try again later. This page has a good checklist of skills  a child should have before learning to read. When he's ready to try blending, this blog entry on preventing word-guessing demonstrates how you can teach him the blending procedure.

 

Merry :-)

 

 

[macmacmoo]

My son had a hard time with blending. I tired all sort of things: Explode the Code and Orginary Parents fro from single letter to CVC. Phonic Pathways though it did have a section on two letter "words," DS didn't do well with it.  What ended up working was side stepping blending and doing some work on phonemic awareness, we used the first chapter (a review chapter) of  Plaid Phonics Level A.

[ajfries]

Thank you for the responses so far!! He can separate words into their sounds, he'll say to me "Mom! I can spell cat! /k/ /a/ /t/" And he does seem to enjoy writing his own word lists (mat, cat, sat, mom, dad) We never have gone over syllables :blushing:, up to this point I've just been winging it.

 

I think we'll start implementing some of the games you mentioned. That'll build confidence in both of us! :)

 

 

[boscopup]

My oldest could chunk a word into its sounds for an entire year before he could blend them back together. I agree with others that it's developmental, so you may need to side step a bit and come back to it.

[boscopup]

Also, you could use a program like Spalding (or one of its spinoffs), which teaches them to read via spelling. They can technically do the program before blending clicks.

[carriede]

Great thread! Saving this for later. Thanks!

[Dscampbell1979]

All About Reading's Pre Level teaches a lot of the things the other posters are talking about and it's fun too. It teaches using lots of games. I am glad we used it because I didn't realize how much they need to know before they actually learn how to read. I am teaching my first to read and this program has held my hand along the way :)