Blending practice at home

Video: Explaining how you can help practice blending sounds together to read words

The steps:

1. When we learn to read firstly we need to be able to sound it out aloud, this helps with the initial thought processes when looking at something new.
2. When we know how to sound aloud we can practice sounding out words in our head, this is a step closer to fluency (children need to practice this skill).
3. We can read the word (almost seems like we can sight read the word but the truth is we are fluent in the phonics of it and if we struggled then we can backtrack and either sound it out in our head or sound it out aloud.

If you child is not able to do this then the key is to model the skill to them, the more you model the more practice they get at learning the skill.  Also see the clips on oral blending and segmenting and make this part of your daily routine. The more your child gets practice at hearing the sound sounds blended together then the more they will be able to build the skill to do it independently.

Document:  example words using the different sounds that you can make for blending practice (either making these words using sound cards or having them written as flashcards)

It is important to try to have a bit of extra daily practice throughout the day as this helps to reinforce the words practiced and move those sounds and words to fluency.

Video: Example to try at home

You could always place the sounds around the house at key places so that they have to practice them when they move past them.  It is important to keep up the practice with little and often.