I have a few 1st graders who can't not blend sounds together into words. They can tell me the sound for every letter in the alphabet, but when you put the sounds together to form say, d-o-g , they can't sound it out and read the word. Any tips?
Teach the indivudual sounds as initial/final sounds first. I don't find many are successfully independently blending words with sounds I haven't directly taught yet. Since I haven't taught short "o", some of mine would not get "dog". I've only taught short "a" so far, (spent this week on it) and about 6 consonants, so they can blend "cat"! But not "dog".
Of course if there is a dog in my guided reading lesson, we'll 'get' that word because there is a picture with a dog in it, and a short word that starts with "d', so our predicting skills will help us guess that word, but not our phonics skills ...not yet.
I also have a very strong sight word program using my basal reader, word walls and Pat Cunningham's "Month by Month Phonics", but "dog" isn't in my sight word list either. Perhaps they need a few more months of lessons before blending becomes strong enough to be an independent reading skill. That's what I find at this time of year anyway.
I find that my first graders usually are better at blending when they are writing that when they are reading. When they look at a whole word, they are sometimes overwhelmed, but it they are trying to write it, they can take one sound at a time. Then when they look at the word, they blend the sounds to read it. Lots and lots of writing helps their reading.
Have you tried sound boxes? I agree with linda2671 that lots of writing helps their reading. That's why I use this strategy often-it really helps when they are attempting to write a word. That in turn will help their reading.
We recently started using the Gentry spelling for 1st and it has really helped my kids. There is a lesson you can use to introduce words using "sound chips" and they say the word like a turtle, very slowly, but never let go of a sound--in other words they don't break the word up but keep it flowing like the singing poster said. It's helped my kids a lot. The other thing we started doing is rotating reading groups and assisted writing. Like the other posters said, writing the words really helps and the more we combine writing and reading, the stronger both become. When they say d - o - g many can't put it together, but dddoooggg as they are writing it does help.
I've been trying to do interactive writing every single day, and I am totally seeing it pay off in writing like never before. We started out by labeling lots of things around the room. We'd only write three words a day, but with every word I was modeling how to hear each sound. For rule-following words that are one syllable try this:
"Throw" the kids the word and have them "catch it" and hold it in their tight fist. Then, together, let the word out but only ONE sound at a time. Each sound you let out, put a finger up and write it.
For multi-syllable words- first clap it to isolate the parts. Then throw them each syllable and let it out a sound at a time.
I now see my kids doing it during writing and they are getting so many in there. I agree with an above poster- many first graders need to write to read. That's why having a substantial writing time everyday is so important. It's not so much about the craft of writing, as the phoneme piece of it.
If you teach your kids to sound out words like this, then they can use the same thing for sounding out CVC words. I.E.: hold it in your hand, watch the letters and let out the word one sound at a time. If they still can't hear it, try having them do it fast and putting the sounds "closer" to each other. Good luck!
I've just been reading about phonological awareness and in it they stated that most children can blend onsets and rimes before they are able to blend together individual phonemes (ie. d-og before d-o-g). They cited Marie Clay as pointing out that learning individual letter-sound associations and blending them into words is both time-consuming and uncertain for the young literacy learner. She believes they need to attend to large chunks of information when they read. So why not teach the word chunk or family 'og' now?
Bookmuncher Sounds very interesting. My question to you (I just posted a question about word families) when throwing the words and you come to a word family say "at" how does it work? Are you saying C A T as in spelling it letter sound by letter sound or would you say "C" and then "at"? So confusing to me! This is my second year in 1st and I know from last year that most of the kids can handle a lot more that what was expected by the phonics program. I remember you said before that your school doesn't do spelling tests in first, am I right? Thanks, Elsa Miq
If there is a word chunk they are familiar with inside the word, I don't usually throw it to them. I'll just say, "we can spell that one it has a word chunk in it"... you're right it is tricky. I think teaching the kids word families are important but the reality is that they will have to learn to blend individual sounds in order to read words with families that we don't cover. Plus, stretching out words together in order to hear each sound is a great way to build those phonemic awareness skills.
It sounds like your children need some extra practice with phonemic awareness! Maybe a 5 minute practice each day segmenting and blending sounds would be helpful. Don't have any words or letters. It is all oral. Just say the sounds to students and have them blend the word. Teacher says /d/ /o/ /g/, students say dog. Then reverse it the next day. You say dog and have them say /d/ /o/ /g/. Once they strengthen their ability to hear the sounds individually and blend them together, it will be an easy transition to blending the written word if their letter/sound correlation is already strong.
What are sound boxes? I'm a Ex. Ed teacher so I only get in to work with the students for 30 minutes a day. I've never had this level before, I usually have the older ones so I"m really at a loss as to how to help these little guys!
The particular student that I am talking about is able to tell me most of the letter sounds when I point them out (what does A say? etc.) and can even sound out ddd-ooo-ggg but then can't "say it fast" I don't know if she isn't able to hear it or what.
I gave her a spelling test today that had some simple words they calss has been working on and even thought she was sounding out the word (ttt-aaa-ggg, even ttttaaaagggg) she wrote tog, and similar things happened with other words. SHe has all the sound individually, I just can't seem to get her to put them together. I'm ready to run screaming back to my 5th and 6th graders!!! haha THanks for all the suggestions!
If she was able to write "tog" for "tag" that's not so bad and very normal. At least she can hear the beginning, end, and put a vowel the middle. Somewhere I read that the letter "a" has some INSANE amount of sounds.
Stretch out "tag" and "cap" aloud. They are NOT the exact same a. Not to mention "can". I teach the "an" word chunk totally seperately because it is so very different.
I have lots of kids who put weird-looking stuff for the vowels and if I ask them to stretch it for me, I can hear where they are getting it. You're doing a great job... she'll get it!
HAHA Jeanie B...it is Southern! We have a horrible time especially with Pen and Pin...but yes maam, no maam isn't usually an issue!
PS...My grandmother's name is Jeanie B...B never stood for anything, her middle name was just "B" Growing up for the longest time I thought her name was Jennabee or something lol
Hi istoleahalo,
Have you tried taking a step back and blending bigger chunks auditorally? First, present 2 words that she could learn to blend into compound words (ex: cow ... boy = cowboy). Then, present syllables for them to blend (ex: buh ... nee = bunny). Then, move to sounds like you were talking about (d-o-g). Maybe remembering each grapheme and also blending is too much for some right now? I would just say the sounds outloud for them to blend before having them read them.
I also agree that we need to move beyond word families like another poster said, but I find them really helpful when first teaching students to blend. It takes away some of that attention to reading the graphemes because the child already knows what the end is. It allows him/her to focus more on blanding and also to learn more about rhyming. Also, of the word ending become familiar (-ough, -aid, -ing) it acts like a sight word when the child later tries to decode text.
Sarah
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09-29-2006, 06:11 AM
THanks for all the suggestions!
