A phonics blend occurs when you have two or more letters appearing together and you can hear each sound that each consonant would normally make. Also known as consonant blends or even sound blends, these are vital building blocks that help children learn how to read. But before we get into the specifics, let’s take a look at some examples:

Flat: Has one phonics blend being fl because you can distinctly hear the “f” and “l” sounds when pronouncing the word.

Blend: Has two consonant blends in bl and nd.

Read: Has zero blends because no two consonants appear together to hear the individual sounds each makes.

What’s the difference between blends and digraphs?
Consonant digraphs are two or three letters that come together to make one sound, whereas blends are two letters that make two sounds.

What is a consonant blend?
Not to worry, a consonant blend is just another word for a phonics blend! This is because it is always the consonants (not vowels) that are blended while still keeping their separate sounds.

Blending refers to smoothly combining the individual sounds of consonants into words. So how does blending help children learn to read faster and improve mastery?

Reading is actually a skill comprised of subskills, such as blending and phonologic processing. Basically, children need to be able to blend individual sounds smoothly to form complete words without pauses between the sounds (known as phonologic processing). Without these critical skills, reading will be unnaturally slow and the child will not be able to keep up with their peers.

Unfortunately, blending words is a skill that is often overlooked by teachers. One very pragmatic reason for teachers overlooking this skill is because proficient readers blend naturally since they already know the word and how it’s supposed to sound.

So, imagine a classroom with 25 students and where 15 of the children already have mastered the skill and thus read out lout quite well and proficiently. But for the other 10 students, their reading is considerably slower as they struggle sounding out words because they have yet to master sound blending. What happens?

Sadly, even if the teacher provides students with the same amount of time to read aloud in class, the proficient students may read 2-3 pages of material while those struggling with phonics sounds blending might only read 1 page. The net result is that students who have yet to master blending get less practice reading while teachers just hope they speed up with time. But until they master consonant blending, the children will continue to struggle and fall behind their peers.

• Brother
• Black
• Clock
• Flap
• Frog
• Lift

• Glue
• Green
• Jump
• Dance
• And
• Ink

• Ant
• Play
• Pretty
• Farmer
• Corn
• Sleep

• Smell
• Snake
• Spy
• Stop
• Swim
• Tree

Read our phonics strategies for teaching kindergarten and 1st grade phonics in a fun and easy way!

Teaching phonics blends in a classroom setting is quite challenging unless all students are at the same skill level (and that almost never happens). Ideally, children should learn phonics blends at home before school starts. However, regardless of where or when they learn sound blends, here are some of the best tools and phonics activities to help your children learn this critical reading sub-skill quickly:

• Phonics Blends List: This is just a simple list of the most common consonant blends for children to learn and memorize. So instead of them learning the blends as they read, they are taught blends separately via the list and practice.

• Songs, Videos, and Supplemental Tools Dedicated to Teaching Consonant Blends: Again, teaching blending requires a lot of practice. And while reading out loud is excellent practice, you really want to help the child learn the primary blends separately. Thus, reading becomes an activity where they practice blending instead of the place where they learn it.

• Patience and Practice: Every time a child mispronounces a sound blend, it must be corrected. Otherwise, the mistake could become a bad habit that is much harder to break so a lot of patience and practice will be required on the part of the teacher or parent. 

What are your favorite blending activities to teach kids?!

One of the biggest reasons I created Red Cat Reading was to help overworked and overstressed parents prepare their children for school success.

Even for children at the beginner level, Red Cat Reading employs structured educational videos, songs, worksheets, and interactive ebooks to help teach and reinforce consonant blends.

In just 90 days or less, your child can learn sound blends and how to read using our proven system that begins with a personal assessment of your child’s skill level.

Once complete, we will continue to monitor progress and make any adjustments necessary to help your child learn how to read correctly.

Kids will learn with our funny and inspiring phonics songs and phonics videos: www.redcatreading.com/videos-songs

Your child’s education is too important to forget about — so sign up for your free account at RedCatReading.com today!