Phonics Blends for Kids: SC, SK, SM, SN, SP, ST - Beginning Reading on Harmony Square

Beginning reading on Harmony Square. Children will learn letter blends SC, SK, SM, SN, SP, ST. Learn to read. Fun consonant blends. Learn about blends. Blends are two letters that begin words and each letter sound can be heard.

What are Consonant Blends ?

Phonics blends or clusters, are groups of consonants whose sounds blend together. As children become more confident with the alphabet consonants, they start to blend these letters together. Consonant blends are so called, because you will notice that they do not have any vowels between them. Each letter within the blend is pronounced individually, but quickly, so they ‘blend’ together. Blends are usually composed of two or three consonants and can begin or end a syllable or word. Consonant blends that appear at the beginning of a word, are referred to as Initial Consonant Blends or beginning blends, and those that appear at the end of a word are referred to as Final Consonant Blends or end blends.

A consonant blend is when two or more consonants are blended together, but each sound may be heard in the blend. The most common beginning consonant blends include: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fr, tr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sl, sm, sp and st. Blends can also occur at the end of words as in the word “last”. There are also blends which contain three consonants. Common three consonant blends include: str, spl, and spr. When learning blends, they are usually introduced in groups. For example, a teacher may choose to introduce the l-blends first (bl, cl, fl, gl, pl and sl) followed by the r-blends. When introducing the concept of blends, cue cards often help, and videos like this will help children greatly since it provides sound as well.

Why are Phonics Blends so Important?

Reading is actually a skill comprised of sub-skills, such as blending and phonological processing. Basically, children need to be able to blend individual sounds smoothly to form complete words without pauses between the sounds (known as phonological 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, for instance in a classroom with 25 students and where 15 of the children already have mastered the skill and thus read out loud 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.

Practice, Patience and Learning Tools Are Key to Teaching Children Consonant Blends

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:

* Songs, Videos, and Supplemental Tools Dedicated to Teaching Consonant Blends: 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.

* 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.

* 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.

Phonics instruction teaches children how to decode letters into their respective sounds, a skill that is essential for them to read unfamiliar words by themselves.

Keep in mind that most words are in fact unfamiliar to early readers in print, even if they have spoken knowledge of the word. Having letter-sound knowledge will allow children to make the link between the unfamiliar print words to their spoken knowledge.

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