Pre-reading Blending and Segmenting Activities

Blending

Once students have decoded a word according to its phonemes, then they need to be able to blend those individual phonemes together into a coherent word. Thus the ability to blend underpins decoding. Consequently, it is important that students participate in blending activities even before they begin learning to read.

If this is an area of difficulty, the following activities might be useful:

Robot Talk

• Ask students to carry out a simple activity that includes some words with more than one syllable (e.g., stand up slowly, throw the basketball, open the window).
• Give the instruction to the students in a robotic voice in which the words are said syllable by syllable with a gap between each syllable (e.g., o-pen the win-dow E-liz-a-beth).
• Try to incorporate the concept during the day. For example: Fi-o-na, please clean the white-board or Chris-to-pher please give each stu-dent a piece of pa-per).

Snail Talk

• Place several different objects or pictures in front of the student. Make sure they are objects that would be familiar to the student (e.g., sun, book, snake, ship, etc.).
• Have the student identify each object.
• Initially, use objects with only 3 to 4 phonemes. As the student progresses, the number of phonemes in the word can be increased.
• Sound out the name of one of the objects one phoneme at a time.
• The student attempts to identify the object.
• Initially, you may need to just ‘stretch-out’ the word (e.g., ssssuuunnnn). As the student becomes more competent increase the time between each individual phoneme (e.g., p…..e…..n). However, make sure the student can easily blend ‘stretched out’ words before separating the phonemes.
• It is also easier if the word begins with phonemes that are easily ‘stretched’ (e.g., m, s, f, etc.).
• If the student has difficulty identifying the word, even when it is ‘stretched out’, have the student copy you first.
• It can also be useful to a ‘phonic whisper phone’. Initially, you can say the sounds into one end of the whisper phone while the student listens with the other end of the phone placed next to their ear. The student can then copy you and listen to themselves saying the sounds.

Use Blocks or Counters

• Some students find it useful to have a visual representation of the sounds.
• Place a block or counter in front of the student as you say each sound in the word.
• Point to each block as you repeat the sounds.
• Help the student say the sounds as you both point to, or touch, the blocks.

I Spy

• Play I spy as usual except you sound out the words rather than giving descriptions.

Listen to This Word Song

• Teach students the following song which is sung to the tune of the Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
  

• At the end of the song, the teacher says the sounds in the word and students blend the sounds and say the word.
• You could do a similar activity with ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’ and instead of saying the name of the animal, it is sounded out.

Blending Slide

• A useful visual representation of blending is to place an eraser on a ruler which is held at a slight angle.
• As the rubber slides down the ruler, say the sounds in a word and then when it hits the table, say the whole word.

Segmenting

The ability to blend is usually mastered before segmenting. However, both skills are needed for reading and spelling development. Segmenting is particularly relevant for spelling.

Clapping Chants

• Teach students chants that involve clapping to the syllables. Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar is a good example.
• Most skipping chants are appropriate: https://elitejumps.co/blogs/guides/jump-rope-rhymes-songs
• Begin by having students develop a simple clapping pattern first.
• Once the clapping pattern has been established, students can add in the words.

I Spy & Snail Talk

• Use the same activities as described in the blending section, except instead of the teacher doing the segmentation, the students do it.

Cheer Leader Activity

• Say a word. Begin with words that only contain 2 or 3 phonemes and then gradually increase the number of phonemes as students become more competent.
• Then instruct students to give you the sounds in the word.
• Make it active by adding in actions. It could be as simple as throwing your hands in the air.
• Keep in mind that this is quite a difficult activity as it requires students to keep in their short-term memory the word sun, plus the sounds that have previously been said.
• To make it easier, after students have provided the first sound, the teacher can say, “Tell me the next sound in sun – s…..”. Then, “Tell me the next sound in sun – s-u….”

Break it Down

• If students are having difficulty segmenting a whole word, begin by seeing if they can focus on identifying just the first sound.
• Once they can identify the first sound of words easily, move onto identifying final sounds.
• If students are having difficulty identifying medial sounds, you can begin by using minimal pairs and having students identify whether the two words you say are the same or different (e.g., hat/hat, hat/heat, pin/pen, pen/pen).

If phonological awareness is an area of weakness for your students, you may find the Sound Hearing book a useful resource.