- Begin by teaching meaningful sight words. This will help students understand that printed text represents spoken words.
- Begin teaching single-sound consonants plus vowel buddy ay and ee. This can be done along with teaching meaningful sight words. (If a child can tell you a cow says moo, a child can tell you what “m” says.
- If the student is developmentally ready, you may begin blending instruction after teaching three consonants and ay. This will help students to understand that words are made up of individual sounds phonogram.)
Phonogram Fluency Flash 2:59
Instruct parents to teach the additional consonant phonograms plus ai, igh, oa, oe and eigh. Model for parents the Fluency Flash to build phonogram sound fluency.
Blending Overview
Breaking it Down
While many young learners can learn letter sounds, blending these sounds together can be difficult. Blending involves the use of phonemic awareness and must be explicitly taught. The videos below model guided support for breaking instruction down so your student understands the concept. Don’t forget to use gesture support if necessary.
Phonemic Awareness of Syllable Beats
Compound words.
Sometimes we can get carried away with a person's progress and jump to a more complex step. That's fine if it works. But if it doesn't, be sure to back up and break up. 1:35
Syllable Count Game“beats”
In this demonstration Mom participates in a syllable count game. Devin learns about tapping out the syllables (I say parts but I should have been saying syllables). Watch Mom's interest and pride as she watches Devin go through these. 7:00
Syllable Game with Magnets. This one is great for showing how to teach a parent a skill and also for getting words from environmental print (grocery flyer-chef boy are dee; powerade) and for suggesting to use a menu when out to practice as well. (hamburger). [Devin and his whole family wound up playing this game in the pitch black during Hurricane Irma] Mom takes over the instruction. "Listen to Mom." 4:06
Phonemic Awareness of Phonogram Sounds
Helping Devin understand that words are made up of sounds. 6:09
Pound the Sound - In this video we do not use print at all. The emphasis is on hearing the sound. The pieces of construction paper have no letters on them. 5:28
Blending sounds with print associated. Devin inserts the 'r' sound. Use arm tapping and plates to show difference between 'pay' and 'pray'. I explain to Angie that we are concentrating on blending so at another time, we/she can refine the p sound. Say /p/ five times quickly 8:51
Learning to Blend Game
Driving on Blending Street. Phonograms are in the parking lot. Practice them there first before going to Word Street. This is an excellent example of understanding when you have to back up and break up the skill 4:52
Support Materials
Phonics Cards, Word Strips and Train the Brain Books. (Start blending with phonograms ay and ee.)
Teaching Devin to see and underline multi-letter phonograms using a progression of match, select and name phonics sound cards. 5:59
(Start blending with phonograms ay and ee.) Word strips are cut into word cards. Use cards to teach blending/reading. This is a precursor to reading those words in a book. Use the word strips to to build on fluency. It's as if the words had been memorized but they were first taught and then practiced with Devin knowing/applying the sounds to read the word. Second part: reading the book. Start with the easy one "I See" rather than "I Read" building on small steps. No guessing. Stop and sound out. Shared reading. Adult reads the common words (unless the student has already memorized those words)
Devin Reads his first book. I See Double e. keel. jeep. beep. Mom is so excited listening to Devin read his first book. She jumps right in to help him sound out the word keel. This is excellent. I tell Devin there are 72 phonograms, and we have 72 books. He will wind up reading all our books. 3:07
Speech and Spelling
See how learning phonics helps speech. Halloween (drops the n). Devin uses an m first and is corrected. Then Mom tells me he typically leaves off the sound of that word. I explain that learning to read and being sensitive to phonemic awareness helps not only with reading but with speech and with spelling. Learning to read with phonograms have wide-spread benefits. 1:27
Writing sentence. Hear the Sound and Write it Down. Devin writes full sentences and even learns to put a period at the end. Mom takes over with the dictation. Does great job. I correct Devin's posture when writing (and reading) referring to it as a college student posture. 3:09
Comprehension
Train the Brain Readers
1) Comprehension and discussion Questions
2) Rhyming.
The questions at the back are designed to ascertain retention of factual information. Also, there are questions that engage Devin: what other kind of fruit can you peel? RHYMING: bee, see, fee, etc. Then I explain to Angie that she can do these any time in the car. Stopped at a red light: red, bed, said, head. The spelling does not matter. It is spoken sounds. 2:47
Incorporate comprehension with word cards using ay. Devin sounds out 'play' which sounds like 'pray' but he acts out playing a video. He sounds out the word 'tray' which he has never seen before. Then he acts it out. Mom says "Devin!" with such pride - and surprise. He then works thru payday, covering up day then covering up pay, then putting them together. Huge smile when he realizes what he read b/c that is important to him. "So good Devin" I add: So what I have proved to you and to Mom is that you don't need to memorize words. Just memorized the phonograms and you can read hundreds and hundreds of words. 3:22
Sail Away Train the Brain Readers
Once students know all of the consonant phonograms plus ay and ee, introduce the ay and ee Train the Brain Readers. The five additional Sail Away vowel buddy phonograms can be introduced, from simple to complex, after students learn additional phonograms. See examples below. The complete Sail Away Series is located in your resource page.
Students are now ready for:
How to Read Syllables and the Vowel Sounds they make.