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Beginning blend clip cards

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Looking for a way to reinforce those tricky beginning blends?  Try these free clip cards!

Such a hands on beginning blends activity! Get all 64 cards FREE.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

So… are you teaching someone to read?

How’s it going with those CVC words?

By “CVC” I mean consonant-vowel-consonant.   Words like cat, sit, and hop.  We usually start reading instruction with these simple words.  After children have mastered them, it’s time for the next step: beginning blends.

For many children, substituting  a blend for that first consonant makes the reading much trickier.

Such a hands on beginning blends activity! Get all 64 cards FREE.

To help tackle those tricky blends, I’ve created a set of beginning blend clip cards that focus on the following letter combinations:

  • br, cr, dr, tr, gr, fr, pr
  • cl, gl, fl, bl, pl
  • sc, sk, tw

But I didn’t want these to be too easy.  If I made the choices for the above card, crab, a choice between three different blends – it would be almost like an exercise in beginning sounds.  For example, it wouldn’ t be hard to pick “cr” from cr, tr, and pr.

So I made them tougher.

Such a hands on beginning blends activity! Get all 64 cards FREE.

I always kept that single letter on the cards so that your child will have to determine whether or not the word begins with a blend.  Because some of the cards don’t begin with a blend.

See? Tricky.

In fact, for the first few cards my Four always went for that single letter.  I had to help him see that we needed to check if a second letter was close behind.

Such a hands on beginning blends activity! Get all 64 cards FREE.

My Four knows his letters sounds without even having to think about them. He breezed right through my beginning sound clip cards.  But these blend cards were quite challenging. Here are some ways I helped him determine the answer:

  • I read all the choices to him after he named the picture.

“What’s the picture?”

“Glue.”

“Okay, so we have /gr/, /gl/, and /g/.  Which sounds starts the word GLue?”  (I emphasized that beginning blend.)

*P.S.  Whenever I have letters between forward slashes (as in /gr/), I am referring to the phonetic sound of the letters, not the letter names.

  • We made words with each of the choices to see which sounded right.

“Let’s try saying glue with different beginnings.  Gr… that would make it say grue.  Gl… that makes it say glue.  And plain old g makes it say goo.  Which one is right?”

Such a hands on beginning blends activity! Get all 64 cards FREE.

I’ll be honest – this wasn’t easy!  And after doing a smallish stack, my little guy had had enough.  I think we need to take a step back and focus more on playing with those beginning blends.  I’m thinking about another printable that would be a first step… so stay tuned!

P.S. Are you looking for more phonics printables?

In addition to the freebies on this website, you’ll find hundreds more in the membership! From letter sounds to multi-syllable words, we’ve got it all! Click here to learn more.

Get your free beginning blend cards!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

Roll & Read Phonics Games – Level 1 – CVC – Blends – Digraphs

$5.00

These are a fantastic way to help kids read words with beginning blends and digraphs!

Buy Now

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Reader Interactions

55 Comments

  2. SANDY GUERRA

    ME ENCANTA TODO LO DE TU PAGINA… ES SUPER SOLO QUE TODO ES EN INGLES, ayudo a mi nena reforzandole pues tiene sindrome de down y siempre busco material que le guste y aqui encontre material didactico que me parece increible, el problema es el idioma

    Reply to this comment

  4. NIRVA Vernet

    The Blending Cards you provided us are so amazing. Thank you for doing and giving us, teachers, the right tools to teach so we don’t have to look further. I feel that you always know my crying for help, and you are right there to rescue me. Thank you!

    A very grateful teacher,

    Reply to this comment

  7. Lisa

    Great site! Very helpful for younger students in a fun and hands on approach.
    I am wondering if you have sound cover sheets for beginning and ending blends? I see that you have diagraphs, but I have not been seen blends.

    Thanks so much,
    Lisa

    Reply to this comment

  8. Barbara

    I help with a tutoring program in my town. We tutor students who are having problems in reading and math in school. It’s a small group. The Director has decided that we do a two week tutor program with K-2 students to help them prepare for the upcoming school year. Your activities are going to be of tremendous help as we don’t have a budget to buy materials. I think the hands on activities that you have produced will keep them engaged and interested. I have also been reading the tips you’ve given to help set up the program. Thank you so much for these wonderful, colorful activities.

    Reply to this comment

  9. Carolyn

    Do you have a recording sheet to go with this activity? Maybe the same picture with a box for the beginning blend and the rest of the word already there? It would be nice to have something where the pictures match perfectly. I need something to hold my students accountable so that I can see if they are making mistakes when they are working independently in stations and I can’t be there to sit with them. Please let me know! Thanks!

    Reply to this comment

  11. Despina

    Your blog is absolutely gorgeous!!! We love it cause we always find the most inspiring, hands on and plafyul materials to accompany us on our learning journey!!!! You are a treasure!!!! Thank you sooooooooooooooooo much!!

    Reply to this comment

  12. Bridgette

    Hi Anna,

    I am teaching a new reader with Apraxia to “read.” The learner has identified to sound out the phonetic sounds of each individual letter in the alphabet and I would like to see what should be next? I was thinking on moving him on to blending initial consonants (i.e., br, bl, cl, etc) THEN moving onto teaching CVC words. I would like to ensure I start with easy and move on to more difficult reading/decoding. What do you recommend?
    Thank you

    Reply to this comment

  14. Joan Schoppe

    Hi Anna,
    I am a retired teacher who tutors because I just love working with kids! I was wondering why the sl blend was not in the l group of blends? Thanks so much for all your hard work!

    Reply to this comment

  17. Britni Bradford

    These look perfect! I made some similar cards a while back when my 3 yr old was struggling with them in reading a little bit – but I made ours go the reverse way (3 pictures to choose from) to match to the blend. But I still think she looked to just match the beginning letter even though we would review the blend sound every time. Now that she’s almost 4 and her reading has just advanced to a point where we just practice reading by whatever interests her, I’ve tried to shift a little more toward helping her understand the phonics better (in preparation for future spelling activities). These should challenge her just the right amount I think.

    Reply to this comment

  18. Lorene Sexton

    You do such a great job! I hope your endorsers pay you what you’re worth. These blended clip cards are perfect. The thought of not putting just blended possibilities as options was brilliant!
    Thanks for all your resources, it’s a tremendous help!

    Reply to this comment

      • Erin

        Hi, Anna. I just keep finding more and more activities for my first graders! Is there no end to all of the wonderful resources you so generously share with the rest of us? (I certainly hope not!)

        Thank you for this new addition to my supply of ELA activities.

        Oh, and I figured out how to make the fold-and-read word cards! (Duh! – on my part!)

        Reply to this comment

  19. Liz

    Hi, these are fantastic but I have a couple of questions about what you might be calling some of the pictures. There are the a few I just can’t work out, this could be because we call things different names in New Zealand, but here are the ones I was not sure of. Would really appreciate your help. The cat (is that ‘clever’) carrot, beach ball, the bear (is that ‘brown’) the saw, the door, the feather, the gate, the pillow or cushion, the turtle, the sandwich,

    Thanks.

    Reply to this comment

  24. Susan Ferguson

    Thanks for the clip cards. However, I got ready to print the cards and noticed a mistake on a couple of the cards where the blends don’t match the pictures. These are the cards with the picture of the clock and the skis..

    Reply to this comment

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