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I’m currently teaching my younger daughter to read. She knows all her letters, most of her sounds, and has all the pre-reading skills I recommend before teaching a child to read.
But we’ve been hitting a little bit of a wall with blending sounds.
She’ll see a word like this: wag, and she’ll say the sounds /w/ /a/ /g/ … “Pat?”
Woah … where did pat come from?
Actually, this isn’t all that uncommon. It can be hard for kids to keep all those sounds in their short term memory long enough to put them together to make the right word.
That’s where successive blending comes in.
Here’s a video that shows exactly how it works.
If you prefer a picture tutorial, here you go:
I created a set of cards – one set for the first sound, one for the middle sound, and one for the ending sound. The first cards are all letters that are used in CVC words. The middle letters are all vowels. The final letters are all letters we often see at the end of CVC words (so, for example, you won’t find an h or a j in the last stack of cards).
To play, simply flip over the first card and say its sound. Have your learner repeat it after you. /h/
Flip over the second sound. Have your learner repeat it. /a/
THEN (and this is key), push those first two sounds together. Say their combined sound. /haaa/ Have your learner repeat it.
Flip over the final card. Say its sound. /t/ Have your learner repeat it.
Now put all the sounds together. First … /ha/ /t/. Then, /haaat/. Have your learner repeat it.
For my daughter, the favorite part of this activity was determining whether the words were real or silly.
If you have learners struggling to blend sounds, or you’re simply introducing this skill, I strongly recommend successive blending! I learned about it from the wonderful book, Making Sense of Phonics (check it out if you’d like to learn more about teaching phonics!).
Looking for more phonics resources?
I recommend my giant bundle of printable books and games!
© 2018, Anna G. All rights reserved.
Jenn says
October 23, 2018 at 8:39 pmThanks you for this. I have been struggling to teach my son blending and i think this will help.
Anna G says
October 23, 2018 at 9:46 pmLet me know how it goes, Jenn!
Fairouz says
October 23, 2018 at 8:59 pmThank you so much for this gooood idea. It is realy help me to teach my student how they can read .
Anna G says
October 23, 2018 at 9:46 pmYou’re welcome, Fairouz!
vandana says
October 23, 2018 at 9:08 pmThank you. its a lovely resource!!
Anna G says
October 23, 2018 at 9:46 pmYou’re welcome, Vandana!
Maria Elena Trujillo says
October 23, 2018 at 9:25 pmThanks for sharing. My students will love it.
Anna G says
October 23, 2018 at 9:46 pmYou’re welcome, Maria!
Taylor says
October 23, 2018 at 9:28 pmI needed this email to remind me all children have short term memory! Thank you!!!
Anna G says
October 23, 2018 at 9:47 pmI know what you mean! It’s easy to jump to conclusions when children have this issue, but often it’s just something they need to get the hang of.
Amy says
October 23, 2018 at 9:51 pmThis is perfect timing for me! Exactly what I need to help a little boy I teach who has difficulty blending. I can’t wait to try this out with him! Thank you!
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:40 amI hope he has success with it, Amy! 🙂
Zenia Coto says
October 23, 2018 at 9:59 pmI will try this with my son, he is 5 and we have difficulties to get him to read.
Thanks!
Hugs from Honduras
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:40 amYou’re welcome, Zenia!
Kay says
October 23, 2018 at 10:59 pmExactly how the kids do it. “S-a-t” map…… I will give it a try. It’s been quite difficult to get the kids I teach to read CVC words.
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:40 amI hope this helps, Kay!
Marlene Lindquist says
October 23, 2018 at 11:10 pmThank you. This is a great resource to use with my intervention groups.
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:40 amYou’re welcome, Marlene!
Whindi says
October 24, 2018 at 2:48 amThanks a lot. This is great and give me idea to do based this resource. I also can modify it into my language
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:40 amI’m glad this is helpful, Whindi!
Neha says
October 24, 2018 at 2:48 amHi ! Thanks for sharing this amazing resource but I had a question . Do you teach them to combine the first two sounds in the word or the last two like for cat would it be /ca/ and then/ t /or /c /and then /at/. Look forward to your response
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:41 amI would do the first two sounds and then the final sound. But the other way you’re mentioning is also a great way to teach beginning readers; it’s teaching with word families. You’ll find many, many resources on my site that you can use with that approach. I just want to be clear that with this approach, you work with the first two sounds first.
Priscilla Bruintjies says
October 24, 2018 at 4:46 amThank you so much Anna!
My students are gonna love this and I must say that your daughter is doing pretty well.!👍😍
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:41 amThank you, Priscilla!
Marti Anderson says
October 24, 2018 at 6:00 amWe do something a little bit different. We start by doing each sound individually, then move to doing the first sound by itself and then the last two together (onset and rime), and finally all three together. This also helps with learning word families and rhyming. Like your daughter, my students absolutely love determining if it’s a real or nonsense word!…. Thanks much for the blending cards!
Anna G says
October 24, 2018 at 6:14 amYes! This is actually the way I usually teach sounding out words, which is why I have so many word family activities on my site. I didn’t need successive blending with my older kids, but I’m finding that it’s what my current new reader needs.
Carol says
October 24, 2018 at 6:33 amYes, successive blending is great for those children who struggle with blending! I tried it last year with a student who was struggling and it really helped her. I found out about it through your Teaching Every Reader course – thank you so much!
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:22 amI’m so glad to hear that, Carol! 🙂
Kristina Sanchez says
October 24, 2018 at 11:03 amThis is exactly how I teach my special education students (1st and 2nd grade), but we use a blending board.
This strategy works great to help my students blend sounds together to read real and make-believe words. It is almost always the last sound that trips them up and will make them say something different. But having them sound out the first two sounds, and blend just those two sounds together first really helps. Then they can say the last sound and repeat (sometime resound out the first two sounds) and then blend the last sound with the first two has always helped my students become readers.
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:22 amThank you so much for your feedback, Kristina! I had looked online to see if we could purchase a blending board, but I just saw DIY blending boards. Did you purchase yours?
Gina says
October 24, 2018 at 1:13 pmThis is so great! I’m working in CVC with my students right now. Thanks for the new strategy. I think the putting together of the first 2 sounds will be a good strategy for some of my kiddos who struggle to keep the sounds.
a says
October 24, 2018 at 2:52 pmLove the set up?
Are the q’s printed as p’s ?
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:35 amThere are no q’s in the file, because the printable is for CVC words, and there are no CVC words with q.
Marie says
October 25, 2018 at 3:50 amI love this, the only thing that I would comment on is the sound for ‘w’. This sound is easier for poor spellers if said using the pure sound as in ‘windmill’ almost like woo, but a shorter sound than oo. ‘Wuh’ is to sounds, w and the schwa uh. Using this sound a word like wig would be read wuhig. For dyslexic spellers this can be really challenging. Often when testing poor spellers in higher grades they still struggle to spell, as these schwas get in the way; huh, juh, muh, puh etc. Lots are now being taught with pure sounds, but as teachers we can cause real problems for some spellers if we introduce these sounds with the added ‘uh’.
I love all the posts, but I thought this might help those with students that really struggle.
Marie says
October 25, 2018 at 3:54 amSorry, that should be ‘two’ sounds. Pressed send too quickly 😉
Averil Venn says
October 25, 2018 at 3:55 amThank you so much for your idea about teaching successive blending. I printed it off straight away and used it with my little groups today. I love it and the simplicity of it. Appreciate your efforts in keeping the lessons so interesting.
Averil
Anna G says
October 27, 2018 at 5:35 amI’m so glad that was helpful, Averil! 🙂
HS says
October 29, 2018 at 2:04 amThanks Ana, these are wonderful. Thanks for the amazing video tutorial, my 4 year old saw it and she is all excited about it. I am gonna try it.
Anna G says
October 30, 2018 at 5:33 pmYou’re welcome!
Patricia Murphy says
November 3, 2018 at 12:46 pmHi!
Thank you so much for all your free resources!!
Pattie
Anna G says
November 5, 2018 at 7:23 amYou’re welcome!
E Manning says
November 10, 2018 at 6:55 pmThank you for this resource, it will help my students tremendously!
Anna G says
November 11, 2018 at 7:24 amYou’re welcome! I hope you find many helpful resources on my site.
CeeCee G says
November 15, 2018 at 2:33 pmWow! Love this! It really seems to help things CLICK! Can’t wait to try it THIS way!
Anna G says
November 16, 2018 at 7:23 amI’m glad you like it, CeeCee!
Rashida Khan says
November 19, 2018 at 12:47 pmThank you for the wonderful beautiful resources .They are most helpful.😗
Anna G says
November 24, 2018 at 3:51 pmYou’re very welcome, Rashida!
Jane Keskimaki says
November 20, 2018 at 10:12 amThank you for this great resource! Would love to see another set with some final blends, such as in “camp” and “test”, to take this idea to the next level.
Anna G says
November 23, 2018 at 8:09 pmThanks, I will think about that! I may share one as a subscriber freebie.
Carlene says
December 27, 2018 at 7:13 amI really think this is the best way to teach blending words one -on-one or in a very small group. Thank for sharing as always I enjoy your ideas 💡
Anna G says
December 28, 2018 at 7:08 amYou’re welcome, Carlene!
Meagan Rouse says
January 8, 2019 at 3:37 pmThank you so much for this resource!! How do you keep it organized? I noticed that there are several of some letters (like “b”), but only a couple of another letter. I have put hole punches in the top of each letter card so I can make a “flip” board. But I can’t seem to get my mind around how to have the letters stacked, other than the beginning sounds, vowels, and ending. Does this make sense??
Anna G says
January 9, 2019 at 6:29 amHi Megan! It sounds like you’ve done about what i would do to stack them – the only thing is that if your child is new to CVC words you might put just the a’s on top for the middle stack, since it’s easiest to start with just one short vowel. Otherwise I’d just shuffle the cards and link them together as you’ve done. 🙂
Samuha says
February 21, 2019 at 12:33 pmThis is a great idea! I’m excited to try it with my daughter. Thank you! 🙂
Anna G says
March 2, 2019 at 5:15 pmYou’re very welcome, Samuha!