[Georgiateach]

Some of the students in my class are struggling with consonant blends (nt and mp) and twin consonants (ff, ss, ll). Does anyone have any fresh ideas about teaching these concepts? Help!

[multigrade]

My curriculum teaches blends like -ng, -mp, and -nk separately, but they aren't ever USED separately, as far as I can tell.

So, I introduce them and then mention that they aren't found by themselves. I quickly proceed to -ing, -ong, -ink, -onk, -amp, etc. and ALWAYS mention them with a vowel, never alone, and form word families. (My former class had trouble with these, until I did this.)

The same goes for -ff and -ss. It seems crazy to teach these without vowels, so I don't.

[iluvfirst]

I find that the students get blends much better if taught as word families.

[csano]

The program we use refers to ff, ll, ss, zz as "bonus letters." For some reason the kids like the idea of a "bonus" and it helps them remember. To indicate a bonus letter they put a star above the second consonant. They love doing this.

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