Learning to blend sounds just takes practice to get the "feel" for hearing the individual sounds of letters in words. Once the reader has a fair number of letter sounds under control, the sounds can be blended to produce words. After learning the short "a" sound and practicing it alone and in isolated two or three letter words, putting the short "a" with specific consonants helps the reader to learn how to blend the sounds. By reviewing consonant sounds briefly before endeavoring to combine them with the short "a" , success is built into the activity.
Using flashcards, write three letter words with short "a" sounds, which involve the consonants your reader has just reviewed. A short list follows:
bad ------sat----- had
ran----- cab----- map
ham -----bat----- dad
man----- can----- hat
pan----- lad----- dam
The reader will "sound" out the word by saying each letter sound in isolation to begin with; b-----a-----d-----, s-----a-----t---. Listening to someone else sound out the letters first is a great way to train auditory perception as well. When you are walking in the park, or driving down the street, sound out words using the letter sounds for your reader to identify. Have your learner sound out words for you to try and guess too.
Starting with the three letter words is the easiest approach, but if you have a student that is ready to break apart longer words like flap or crab, just keep letting the student explore new combinations, as long as the learner recognizes the extra letters as indivdualized sounds. Short "a" words can keep you busy for many days. The short sound of "e" when next we meet.
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I taught high school English for many years. You've got a lot of terrific info about reading, much needed info. When you post your blog, have you thought to link it to a URL? There's a line under the blog's title for, for example, sandiegopublicschools.org -- don't know if this is a real address -- and it will link. Your info is too good not to be linked (perhaps an ESL dept at the local community college??) Anyway, I devour books, would enjoy sharing, hearing about what you've read. So, will return. Thanks, Kittie.
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