PR-6216UK Reading For Success - Book 1

Phonemic awareness
Phoneme blending
Pupils gain a better understanding of the role sounds play in making a word by doing phoneme blending
activities. By segmenting the sounds for the pupils and allowing them to blend them together, pupils will
begin to see that a series of sounds makes up a word.
Mystery word
Say a mystery word by saying one sound at a time. When all the sounds have been made, pupils are to
blend the sounds together to tell the mystery word. Begin by providing an example so pupils know what is
expected. For example, if the mystery word is bad, say /b/ … /a/ … /d/. Pupils should identify that the
mystery word is bad. If pupils have a difficult time, model saying the three sounds of the word again
several times, each time with shorter pauses until the word sounds like normal speech.
As pupils demonstrate their understanding of the activity and their capability to blend, use mystery words
with more sounds. For example, expand from words like bad to words such as bend and bring.
This activity is ideally suited for nonsense words, too. Nonsense words are words that we do not use in
the English language. An example of a nonsense word is len. By using nonsense words, you can informally
assess how well pupils understand the concept of blending. If you mix real words and nonsense words,
ask pupils to identify whether the word is real or nonsense.
Pupil names
An excellent way to practise blending is with pupil names. Dismiss pupils from the carpet or to lunch by
segmenting names. The pupils have to blend the sounds to determine who is dismissed. For example, you
may dismiss /j/ … /o/ … /n/. Once pupils are familiar with the blending activity, they will all guess that
John is the person being dismissed. Pupils always anxiously anticipate their names being segmented.
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