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blending - how can I help dd?

6 replies

barbapapa · 18/11/2008 20:05

DD almost 5,reception, has just started reading scheme books (synthetic phonics) . Can confidently make all letter sounds but is really struggling to blend the sounds together - the words she can read are due to word recognition and not sounding out.
She gets quite upset she can't do it - and I don't know how to help her apart from just practising and hoping that it will click. Any hints / tips to help her greatly appreciated.
TIA

OP posts:
barbapapa · 18/11/2008 21:09

bump?

OP posts:
funnypeculiar · 18/11/2008 21:17

ds is the same sort of age, so I may not be much help - he's only really starting to blend, as well/

But, esp if she's getting frustrated, I'd work on phonetic games that you can just play and don't feel like 'trying to read'

Can she split words up? (eg what's the first sound in dog, what other sounds can you hear; what's the last sound etc etc)
Or rhyming games (eg making up a nonsense poem)/how many words can you think of that start with x letter/have x sound in the middle etc

I guess the other thing (that ds does a lot and I assume has been taught at school) is breaking words down - ds does two letters at a time ( eg g + r = grr; a+b = ab; then putting them together.

Apologies if that's all stuff you're doing already!

neolara · 18/11/2008 22:39

I'm just starting to help my dd with this now. She is 4 and in reception.

For 2 mins each night (I use a kitchen timer to make sure I don't do it for longer) we practise blending. I have a list of cv (consonant vowel) words (e.g. up, in, on, at etc) and CVC words (e.g. cup, bit, fat, lad etc).

I choose one of the CV words and I model how to blend the sounds together E.g. "u - p, up".
Then I get my dd to repeat "u - p, up" after me.
Then I get her to say "u - p, up" by herself.
Then I choose another couple of CV words and repeat the same process. While I say each individual sound I point to two fingers which I am holding apart. When I blend the sounds together I bring my fingers together to show that I am making one word. Initially my dd found blending CV words quite tricky, but after a few days she got the hang of it.

We have now moved on to blending some CVC words in addition to a few CV words. We follow the same process:
Me "c-u-p, cup"
Me and DD "c-u-p, cup"
DD "c-u-p, cup"
As dd is getting more confident, I sometimes miss out some of the stages and let her have a go all by herself.

Once she is able to consistently blend CVC words I'm going to add a few CVCC words (e.g. send) and CCVC words (e.g. plan).

I have been amazed how quickly my dd has got the hang of blending by using this approach. It sounds labour intensive but it really isn't. You can make it a short, fun session and if you do it in the way I've described above your dd shouldn't get frustrated because there is limited opportunity for her to get it wrong.

You can use this approach to help her blend phonetically regular words when you look at books together. E.g. if you are sharing a book which reads "The dog sat in the room", you could say something like, "Oh, here's a word we can try to blend. Let's do it together d-o-g, dog" etc.

Also, and I'm sure you're already aware of this, double check that you are not encouraging her to sound out words that are not phonetically regular e.g the, there, sight etc.

gladders · 19/11/2008 10:55

snap -ds is 4 and just starting blending.

neolara - love the idea of the timer as he's not keen so at least if he knew it was only 4 minutes (and then he'd get a choc/whatever) he might be keener?

i have just been persevering whenever he's willing - and trying not to always use the words he comes home with as he has often learned those by heart... we pick some words from books and make some up using letters.

it's very slow, but we are making some headway - he's always delighted when he gets it...

long way to go though -still on cvc words...

MollieO · 19/11/2008 19:40

We get d--o-g = 'goat' and other classics! Ds now has reading books and he is supposed to read all the words except those that don't blend. Unfortunately for him I'm not sure which words blend and which don't until I have tried to spell them out. Bit of a painful process.

maverick · 20/11/2008 09:33

One of the video clips for the Letters and Sounds programme Phase 2. shows 'Teaching and practising blending for reading'
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/clld/las/phase_two.html

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