Blending

[Wobblypig]

How do you move from sounds to blending?
Dd is quite a bit behind in speech and language generally, she recently has started phonics in nursery and due to start reception in September. She can identify the basic sounds but struggles to blend them into a word. Is this something you can teach, is it just pure practise or is it a developmental thing?

With DD we sounded out the letters then I sounded them out faster and then a little faster and then said it to her. I wouldn't worry too much before reception unless your DD really wants to. For many it suddenly happen, one week they don't get it and the next they understand it.

I would leave it until she starts school to be honest and then the teachers will be able to show her how they do it. Some children will pick it up themselves before they start school but they are in the minority.

My son didn't get it until late December of reception year, just after he turned 5. One day he just got it. If I were you I wouldn't worry about it for now. Hopefully it will just click for her as they are teaching it at school.

I think i posted the same question last year. All of a sudden DS1 started to here the words as he sounded them out, it was as if it just clicked all of a sudden.

Hi - retired TA (male) with 20 yrs experience KS1 classes -

As others said, don't worry about it at this stage.

But if DD is behind in speech and language, what is being done to help that situation, and are there any obvious causes? (illness, trauma, changes in her life, etc). Might there be any hearing loss?

Unfortunately, these days there is so much poor speech on TV, radio, etc that, even on programmes aimed at children, accurate speech and diction is neglected. For instance, "t" sound is so often missing from spoken words like "party", "tattoo" etc, that some children grow up never having heard words pronounced correctly. A few secondary pupils can spell "fink" ("think") because that is what they hear spoken at home.

If there are no physical causes of the speech problem, then adults around her taking care to be as accurate as possible in their diction, may help a bit.

If you ARE using phonics, make sure the correct sounds are used (I have known plenty of teachers who are STILL saying sounds wrongly).

Good luck.

Thanks. My son was reading way before school although he was older in the year . Our diction is good, her brother speaks confidently , articulately and with an extensive vocab but she is about 9 months behind her peers with speech and never really talks in coherent sentences preferring clumps of words. She was not considered ' bad' enough to warrant one to one SLt and the group teaching was useless, to her at least.

I think she has no real interest in language at all and I am. Wry worried about how she will cope. We have asked for her to repeat nursery but school don't think that that is a good idea.

Thanks