Reading Techniques That Work: Blending 101 - Ep. 76

Falling for Learning Podcast episode 76 focuses on Letter Sound Blending, a key technique in helping children learn how to read fluently.

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Transcript

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So Welcome to the Falling for Learning Podcast, episode 76 we're getting back to basics. So we started with at the beginning of this podcast, talking about how to get kids to fall in love with reading, how to get into writing. And then I really started to focus, I think, more, on holistic ways to get kids on track for learning and to stay on track for success, which included other things than reading, writing, math and all of that. But today I'm getting back to the basics, and we're going to talk about some basic blending techniques to help your kids learn how to read better. If we're having that challenge and we know that we have a trend around the country where there are kids who have historically low reading scores. So let's get back to basics. How can we help our kids get to reading? Pull up a pencil paper, hit subscribe. Like we're gonna get into it. You. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning Podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. You okay, I did the old switcheroo. Anyway, I have some blending techniques that we're going to talk about today. So just basic blending techniques, sound by sound, blending different things that we could do with our kids to make sure and we check in with them. Now it's holiday season, and we have some extra time with our kids. Sometimes our parents, our family members, embarrass us because they're asking our kids, do they know this? Do they know that? I know homeschool parents talk about this a lot with their people like quizzing your kid to see how smart they are. It's okay, let that go. It is out of care and out of love. If they're worried about whether or not they know how to read. Well, okay, no further ado. We're going to get into it, alright, so blending. So when I'm talking about blending, this is letter sound blending, but I'm actually using letters and sound. So I will do another video. I'm going to do a series of videos on how to do basic reading, and you know how to check in with your kids. And there are some kids that may know their sounds, they may know their letters, but they don't know how to blend words. Now, even as they're learning their sounds and what and letters, they can still learn how to blend. So the basic that we do, the most basic, is vowel consonant words. So vowel consonant, so vowels, if you're not clear on that which you may not be, vowels are the A, T, i, o, and U, okay, these. All right, all letters have these. All words have a vowel, right? And they also stretch. Now, there are some exceptions to this, or some extra words, some extra letters that actually act as vowels, but we're talking about basics right now. We could get into those extra things later. All right, so vowel consonant words have a vowel in the front and a consonant at the end, a word like Act, a word like it in these are simple vowel consonant words. Okay? So what you can do is help a kid with at so sounding get out. Now, obviously, when they get good at this, they are going to know how to sound out the words themselves, right? I mean, they're just recognize the word. They don't need to sound it out any longer. But as you are building on their skills to sound out any word that they encounter, you want to help them with sounding out sound by sound. That's the vowel, that's a consonant, that's about that's a consonant, that's the vowel, that's the consonant. These are vowel constant words. Two letter words are the simplest words to be able to blend. And if your kid can't do it, which they may not be able to, it's very helpful to help them with this. And one key way to help them with this is helping them stretch the vow. Right? Don't let it go instead of act or it or in, right? We're gonna we're going to blend it together. We're blending it by keeping those sounds stretched out. And the vowel sound is the one that you can stretch out most of the time. It. In. So then it's very is easier to hear at it in. So after you have them stretch it out slowly, you can have them say it fast at it in, in, right? And then they can get to the point where they're like, at it in so reading it very simple, right now we know that there are not that many two letter words. So the next one that we build on with kids are three letter words with short vowel sounds. So the short vowel sounds words, they have what's called a C, the C pattern, so, consonant, vowel, consonant, so words such as act at cat, So the C is a consonant, the A is about, the T is a consonant. And the rule for this, right? Because when you're talking about helping kids to sound out words, the rule is helping them to be able to know the rules for sounding out words. So if it's a vowel consonant, vowels have both a long sound and they have a short sound. But helping kids to understand that when you have a vowel and a consonant most of the time, right, you're going to have a short vowel sound. It's not going to say the long sound, which is a long vowels, just say its own name, which, again, we could go over more in other videos, but today we're just talking about the short vowel sound, Ah, right? So always I don't have to say eight, because I know if it's two vowels mean a vowel and consonant meant two letters is going to say the short ah in the front. So knowing the rule for it short, I it okay. So the same thing with the CBC words, the rule is that vowel is going to be short, right? And so helping kids to understand that. And again, notice that this eight, this act cat, has that same vow consonant in it, and helping kids further by helping them build on what they already know, right? So you know how to sound out at now we have at cat, right? So there we have it, and then other words with the same kind of pattern act. So I have the word cat Act. Now I'm going to change the to the ACT bat. Okay, so we're helping the kids build on what they already know. Okay, so we're moving on so and again. You could just go down the alphabet. It is important to have them read real words, and then you could even have them do nonsense or make believe words such as act just so they can know the rules right? Because, as they're learning to read at a young age, or maybe they're not that young, I don't know. It just depends. They need to know that this rule applies to any word that they haven't seen before, and they can use that same rule on it. So at the at the at or get to the point where we know this is at, this is at, this is at. So I can just say the at the at, so helping them to again, build on what they already know. Okay, now obviously you don't want to put another vowel with it, like if I did, E, A, T, because that's a whole nother rule that's not consonant vow consonant. So we have cat, bat, dat, and then, of course, words that they may know already. I'm changing it to at fact, okay, so helping them build on what they already know, helping them to know they don't have to sound out these last two letters every time, and recognizing those different word parts is really important with their blending routines. So the vowel, consonant, consonant, vow consonant is an important one. Now, if you want to take things a step further with kids, which of course you do, you want to keep them on their continuing their journey for learning different types of words that they can recognize the rule and apply it and sound out those words so they could be. Reading. So instead of the we've so far, we've covered the vowel consonant, the consonant, vowel consonant. So let me just number the different types, one, two, and then a third type of word that they could be blending. That is even another level of complexity is consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant, so we have a four letter word, okay, so if we're using the same type of rule that we had, like we're still want to build on what they know, the at words, and I'm going to put down some at word, the at, do another at, so we know this says at, and we're going to put in front of it what you would call a blend. So I'm saying blend and blend in this case is when there's two consonants that come together at and they kind of form. They don't form one sound, they they just blend together nicely. For example, let me go ahead and show you. So we have flat. I hope we can see that good at so instead of saying, look, they can just say, look at flat. Okay, so there we go. Sometimes you can have the b r, so we're brat, all right, so b r instead of saying you can just say B, brat, okay. What other things could we choose? Again? You could make up words such as cracked again, helping them to embrace that sometimes they don't know the word, but they could still sound it out, and they will be building their vocabulary in other ways, and we again, will have videos to show you about how to help build up the kid, the students or kids vocabulary. So if you don't know where your kids are, if you don't know if they know how to read, well you haven't been paying attention, don't feel shame. But let's get into action. Okay, let's get active. Let's make sure that we are working with our kids to see if they know how to read, and we are using strategies to help them to read better. Okay, and so now I'm going to tell you about my book. My book is sitting over here, but I'm going to do a little ad for you so you can see, okay, my book is real. Go ahead and buy it like subscribe all that good stuff. So here's my ad. In the United States, 75% of children don't know how to write well. Add that to the fact that so many people out there are trying to silence the voices of those who have been oppressed and trying to prevent them from telling their story. Who's going to tell your story if your child doesn't know how to write? Well, I have two books to address this issue, the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook. We tend to make sure that parents know what to do, that educators know what to do to get their children to write better and just not write better, but love to write. Make sure that your next generation could tell their story and they won't be silenced. Go to falling for learning.com today to purchase your set. All right, we're back at it, everybody. Okay, so we're into our filing for learning. I've moved it up because I'm kind of short and so you can see here, like this is the blending techniques. But I definitely want you now to be thinking about how we're going to be doing our next level of complexity, which is number 4c, V, C, C, so there's C V, C, C, words, so there's consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant, okay, so this is what we're going to go away From the at, and we're going to think about blends that could be at the end of a word instead. Okay, all right, so, so if we have a word like mask, right? Mm. Mmm, ask at the end, all right, M, A, S, K, so again, the wool, again, is short, short vowel. When I see the A, I know it's a short vowel. And then we are blending again. It is very important to think about blending through the vowel, so they have the M and the A mmm, ah, and then you can put it together. Mm, ah, mask, right? So hold on to that sound. Stretch out the vowel so that we are able to help our kids to hear the sound and put the word together. So, ah, you could do it this way, ask. Mask. They may not hear it depending on what their level is, but helping them to blend through the vowel, stretching out the vowel will help them to hear it better and to get better at independently sounding out words. So mmm, ah, mask. Mask, okay, all right, so we're going to do a couple more words again. We could build on what they know, if you help them with mask, right? You could have something like task, right? Ask. You could just say, I'm changing that mmm to and you could have ask, right? We already know this is Ask, ask, and then we could have ask, right? Okay, now I'm going to change it up a little bit. We could have asked right as cast, okay, so we have cast, and so it is very important, again, blending through the vowel, then blend it together, calf, hold it out, cast, cast. And again, when we're teaching them that blend, and it's a blend, they both keep their same sound. Later, we'll talk about two letters put together that don't keep the same sound. Each one keeps their individual still says it, but it's easier to recognize the SK and just right. So again, helping them to blink. Asked cast, okay, the last thing that we really want to talk about right is not just keeping it at individual words right. So after you've done this, you could go through the words cat, that fat, flat brat cracked. And if they're beginning readers like you know, with their have simple words like this, you may still need to go back and sound out those same words that you already sounded out with them, sounded out with them earlier, and that's okay, so we're going to do it again. Okay, you forgot this one that's okay, mask, right? Mask at again, I recommend blending through the vowel, and it is part of a scaffold. So a scaffold is something that you do to help them. Of course, if it's you know, it shows a little they have more skill, if they could just say, task, task, they have a little bit more skill. They're a little bit more automatic with it, but helping them to bridge that gap, blending through the vow. Ah, task, task, ah, cast, cast, cast again. I recommend doing it on a whiteboard or a poster board or something. You also, of course, could do this on slides, like a high tech way to do it, but it's very important to go back and read over those words, because it's another way of building in some fluency practice. So I already know these words. We already sounded them out. Let's go back and read them more fluently and fluently. When I say fluently, some people don't know, and some people like think, Okay, I'm gonna speed read. But no, fluency is reading like you're talking right, reading like you're speaking like a lot of people on TV or whatever, are reading scripts, but we may not know that, because they're not reading like this, right? Or, you know, of course, I don't have any sentences up here right now, but that's what we're going to make. The change we're now going to move into making some sentences, okay? Or phrases, phrases and sentences to. Help our kids. I'm just going to move this down a little bit, and something that we haven't talked about. Again, there's so many things in reading that we have to talk about, but we're just going to say sentences will often include sight words, or high frequency words, words that you see all the time, like the the fat cat. Fat so very simple sentences, silly sentences, even, but again, based on what they already know, they should be able to read this sentence, right? The fat cat sat. And maybe they don't know this high frequency word, but you could teach it to them. The is one of the first high frequency words that they should know. Okay, so the fat cat sat there's a sentence, right? And again, they may start off with, okay. TD, okay. That's the says the Okay. And then, or at fat fat at Cat, cat, right and then sad SAT. So they may have to blend out each word again. You'll be surprised. It needs a lot of repetition. Stay patient with kids. Don't say, you know that word. You should know it by now. We like but you could point out to them, oh, notice that this has act that is act that is act. So you could point out those things to them because, because it is new to them, they don't necessarily see those patterns. They're not going to pick them up automatically, point it out to them and help them with it, and then they'll start recognizing it because you're showing them and you're helping them, that's your teaching, right? But being patient. Okay, so now we sounded out all the words, let's read it more fluently. The and they still may have to say fat cat. They may do it a little faster, but they may have to stop for a moment and blend it and it's okay, be patient and good, or if they just what you may find. This happens a lot the kids, once they start reading something, they may feel impatient, and then they may wake up a word the cap, they'll just they may say cap they or they may say something completely different. You'll be surprised again. Don't be impatient. Say to them, oh, you know the sounds we sounded this out. So let's go back to the first letter. What sound does that make? What sound does that mean? So be patient. Remember, if they're making mistakes, that is evidence that they're trying. Obviously, if you're sitting there and not doing anything and not reading, you're not going to make mistakes, because guess what, you're not trying. So make sure you encourage them. Look how many words we read today, right? Encourage them. Don't tell them, oh, you should know this. You are this old. You like, if you're feeling that way, take a breath. Walk away, because you are as a parent, as an educator, you are shaping how they feel about learning. So if you are making it a punishment, it's time for you to like berate them because they're not that smart, because you went over this five times, then they're not going to want to do it right. And again, falling for learning is all about teaching kids how to fall in love with learning. So that is your job, right, to help them to feel good about it. Now, like I said, if you're feeling a different way, walk away. There's plenty of opportunities to read again later on, right? You live with these kids, right? So you'll have more opportunities, but you don't want to yell at them, make them feel bad, or, if you're in a bad mood, ruin the reading experience for them. So it should be a lot of encouragement. Good. You got the first sound? Okay, let me help you with the second sound, right? Let's go through this and look at all the reading that you did today. And good job. And again, if they're feeling frustrated, start, just stay with the two letters. You don't have to move to three letters or four letters. I'm just showing you as parents and educators that you This is how you can move toward it. But if I might be, if you're a beginning reader, you might just start just at very simple, two letter words and one lesson. I am not telling you to get to four sounds. These are you could spend weeks on just CBC words, right? And or you can spend, I wouldn't say spend weeks and weeks on two letter words, but at least a week. Maybe if the TD, TD is a new learner, I mean, a new reader, and needs some encouragement, and it's had a lot of failure and setbacks, but lots of encouragement is going to help them. Yeah. So just reviewing, we were talking about some blending techniques, right? So blending, in this case, there's our all types of different blending when we talk about reading. So this is letter sound blendings. We're taking our letters. We're taking ourselves. We're blending them together. We've talked about three, four different types of words. These types of words we're defining as vowels, how many vowels and consonants they have, and they also give us an indicator in all four of these types of words to use a short vowel sound, short vowel sounds, A is ah and a and again, we are not getting into the extras, where some people like, sometimes why and sometimes we're not doing all that. We're talking about basics. Of course, we will talk about it other times. So we're talking about, we talked about four different so there's the VC words, there are the CVC words, there are the CC, VC words, and the the V equals vows and C equals consonants. Consonants are all the other letters in the alphabet. Um, so that's what we're talking about. And then the C, V, C, C, words. And, of course, we gave examples of all of those, and we're sounding them out. So if we were thinking about, okay, now I saw this, how do I use it? Take at least a week. One, just two letter words, right? If your child is at the beginning, not sounding out words, not able to sound out words again. Show them how to stretch out the vowel. Say it fast. Now it it. Say it fast. It in right the CVC word several weeks, right? Because you're going to have a week with the a week with the a short a week with the short e a week with a short I, uh, right. And you could even do more weeks, right, but at least a week with each one, if you're dealing with new readers now, if they kind of know it, you could be, you know, doing a mix of all types of different consonant, vowel, consonant words, kind of like a review to help solidify them. So you kind of have to see, of course, there's different curriculums out there to help them. But, you know, so this is just the basics. Again, the ccvc, you want to then take in afterward, after they're really solid with a CVC, of course, maybe here and there. You maybe you want to, you know, build on what they've like, put in a little challenge, right? So, okay, I'm going to challenge you. So we did fat, and then that could take you right to the I shouldn't be up here, right? Flat, right? Let me give you brat one day. So again, connecting what you've already done, you could again, be focused more on some word patterns, which is like at words, where it words like sit, bit kit, all that. And then there's the constant vowel consonant, teaching them how to put those two letters together in a quick way. And again, I would still recommend blending through the vowel right? And again, I threw in some nonsense or not. What do you call it? Nonsense words or imaginary words. They're not real, but we're using them and to let them know that this is the rule, even if you've never heard of the word, here's the rule. Okay, so good. So thank you so much for joining us on the following for learning podcast. Hopefully you have found some value and you're gonna like subscribe, watch as we have more coming up about how to help your kids with reading and writing and all that good stuff. All right, enjoy the rest of your weekend. Thanks again for supporting the Falling for Learning Podcast, new episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com, at falling for learning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources. Visit falling. Fallinginlovewithlearning.com we really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.