What do you do after your child has mastered the alphabet?

Once they know all the letters and sounds, how do you begin to teach them to make sense of it all? How do you guide them to use this newly acquired knowledge to read and spell words?

The answer is fairly simple. You do this by teaching them to blend and segment.

The process in which you do that is not quite as simple. However, You are in luck my friend! I spent over a decade teaching kids to read in the classroom and devoted years of my life to the research and study necessary to acquire my M.eD of Reading.

I’m prepared to walk you through it step by step. So much that I’ve replicated my entire instructional program, that consistently produced years of students who left me reading at, and most often above grade level.

You’re probably visiting from my free Letter of the Week series. I’m assuming your child has learned the sights and sounds of the alphabet and they’ve mastered print concepts.  If so, welcome my friend!  One of the next steps in our Reading journey is teaching blending and segmenting words.

So, what Does it Mean to Blend and Segment Sounds?

This may be a quick refresher for my educator friends reading, but it’s also highly likely there are many homeschooling Moms or beginning teachers, who might not be as well versed in the lingo of teaching reading. To quickly break it down for you.

Blending sounds is is taking individual sounds and blending them together to form words.  This is commonly referred to as “sounding it out.”

Segmenting sounds involves looking at a word and breaking it down into individual sounds.  This is how we learn to spell.

There are the crucial first steps young children take as they begin to learn to read and write.  Blending and Segmenting should also be taught in an explicit manner.  It is common for beginning readers to struggle with blending and segmenting.  Being intentional in the sequence in which you teach these concepts can be the difference between a student taking 2 weeks to catch on, or 6 months.

First Steps: Beginning, Ending and Middle Sounds

Before I start formal spelling instruction my students HAVE to have began to develop the ability to blend and segment words. Without that, starting spelling instruction is pointless.

In order to learn to spell, students have to understand that words are made up of letters that make sounds.  So we always begin with the study of the beginning, middle, and ending sounds.

So immediately when I finish our letter of the week unit, I begin working to identify beginning sounds in words. I don’t usually spend a lot of time on this, because we just spent months learning letter sounds and this has been covered a LOT. I spend a week or so on review.

During this time we do beginning sound sorts, worksheets and independent centers. I’ve included a sample worksheet below for free.

* You’ll find LOTS of freebies throughout this post including this shameless promotion. I just ask in you keep in mind that these resources and tons more are available in in my comprehensive, ultra practical and extremely affordable Blending and Segmenting Unit on TpT! *

Once I’m certain we have mastered beginning sounds, we begin to work with ending sounds with the exact same approach. It’s important I introduce my students to the sorting activities early on as it’s such a key component of my overall spelling instruction. And example of my ending sound sorts is included below. Click on the image to grab it for free.

The final skill to master before introducing blending and segmenting words is medial sounds.

Even though we only work with short vowels initially, middle vowel sounds often provide difficult for a lot of children. One of the primary reasons is the similarity in both shape and sound in many of the letters (o & a = visually similar, e & i = auditorally similar).

For this reason, it is imperative that students at least know how to isolate the middle sound before advancing into segmenting. Spelling instruction can teach students to identify the differences in sight and sound, but the child needs to first understand the order in which sounds occur in a word.

Again, we explore this through word sorts, centers and practice sheets. My favorite practice sheet is, “One of these Sounds is Not like the Other.” You can grab one of those by clicking on the image below

It’s worth mentioning again. I’ve created a packet FULL of these amazing resources and so much more in my Blending and Segmenting Sounds pack.

It’s a comprehensive resource with a multi-faceted approach to teaching blending and segmenting sounds. It’s all wrapped up in a pretty & crazy inexpensive package and ready to print and go!

And the resources we’ve discussed above aren’t the only resources included in this packet. There’s still more to come and more freebies included below!

Tactile, Visual & Auditory Approaches to Teaching Blending and Segmenting Words

There are hundreds different ways to teach students to blend and segment words. There are all kinds of fun games and activities out there. These games and activities are multi-faceted in that they teach these skills through a variety of different approaches including: auditory, visual and tactile cues.

In beginning our own work with blending and segmenting words, it’s important to note how those cues are represented in my own instructional techniques.

Tactile

Different phonics programs offer different tactile approaches.

Wilson Fundations suggests a tapping method using the fingers on one hand. You should tap out individual sounds and then blend them together with a sweeping motion of the hand.

I’ve seen teachers use their whole arm to model segmenting words. They tap their should for the first sound and continue down their arm with the rest of the sounds.

Some educators prefer to have the student finger point at physical words and identify the sounds, then blend them together by sweeping under the word.

These approaches are all designed to stimulate a strong tactile connection, resulting in better memory retention of the use of these skills.

In regards to segmenting words, it doesn’t matter which approach you use. They all work.

The one I used most commonly was the Wilson Fundations method of tapping it out. This was simply because Fundations was the phonics program that stuck around in our classrooms the longest.

Additionally I’ve created some resources that model pointing to each sound and then blending. These are great independent practice! You can grab one of them for free here or by clicking on the image below.

Visual

I think it’s important for students to be able to visually see the letters broken apart and then pieced back together. It helps them to understand that letters work together to create words.

I typically do this through a variety of activities, but my favorites are re-usable activities that I laminate so they can be done independently.

My laminated sound cards are an easy center, or independent review activity. They can be used time and time again and in many different ways. I’ve had students isolate sounds and write them in the box (beginning, middle or end) and I’ve also had them practice segmenting sounds and writing the whole word in the box.

Another favorite activity is this segmenting mat. It also laminated it for repeated use. I typically provide students with a word ( they can draw it on the board with a dry erase marker) and then have them represent the segmented sounds letter by letter. We’ve used flashcards and letter magnets, abc blocks and letter beads to separate and assemble new words on these mats. The uses for this resource are endless and you can grab it below!

Additionally you’ll find picture sound cards and letters in the Blending and Segmenting Bundle!

Auditory

One of the biggest part of teaching blending and segmenting is making sure that throughout all of these activities your child is orally saying these words.

It is so important for them to combine those visual and tactile cues with the auditory component of repeating themselves aloud.  These three things create connections in their brain that will help them to develop pathways they use again and again as they learn to blend and segment sounds.

This approach also targets three of the most common learning styles.

I’ve got a whole series of posts coming in the next few weeks that walk you step by step through the process of teaching beginning readers to read AND spell.  I utilize a magic known as Word Study that is research based and proven to work.  I spent years in graduate school absorbing the research of the most effective ways to teach children to read.  Word Sorts came up time and time again.

Why?

Because they work.

I’ve dedicated an entire post to  explaining  why word sorts are arguably one of the most valuable resources you can use with beginning readers! Be sure to check it out here!  I’ve also shared my Weekly Word Study Schedule and detailed a ton of games and activities I use in my Word Study Schedule post.

And, if you’re into huge savings and great value, stay tuned throughout the series because at the end I’ll be offering a GIGANTIC comprehensive Spelling Unit Bundle at an incredible price! Literally years of work and years of effective instruction made accessible and affordable, completely done for you!

Until then, make sure you’ve checked out my other resources for teaching beginning readers!  I have a series on Beginning Reading Strategies and a series on Sight Words that I teach simultaneously with Word Studies. Both of them also a ton of free resources!

Also, be sure to follow me on Pinterest also as I pin lots of teaching resources you may be interested in!

Don’t forget to pin this for later!