Blending Letter Sounds to Read and Spell Words

Carla Miller: Okay, friends. So today what we're going to do is we're going to start by drilling our deck. So what you need to do is take out your tracers. Okay. So we're going to go ahead and drill the card. Ready?

Ms. Miller and students: 's', snakes, /s/

Narrator: Today instructional coach Carla Miller will be working on blending sounds with her kindergartners. She begins the phonics lesson with a warm-up, running through flashcards with keyword pictures. This daily practice helps ensure children master the sound of each letter.

Ms. Miller and students: 'i', itch, /ĭ/

Ms. Miller: Who can raise their hand and tell me why is this a different color? Why is this a different color, Hadley?

Hadley: Because it's a vowel.

Ms. Miller: Tell me about a vowel. What's a vowel?

Hadley: It's something that has to be in a word.

Ms. Miller: Very good, very good. Let's keep going.

Ms. Miller and students: 'o', octopus, /ŏ/ 

Ms. Miller: I love those octopus arms.

Ms. Miller and students: 'm', man, /m/

Ms. Miller: Okay, you guys did that so well that we are going to try it with my itty-bitty baby deck. Okay? And this time there are no pictures. So we're just going to say the name of the letter and the sound. Are you ready?

Students: Yes.

Ms. Miller and students: 'z', /z/

Narrator: Next, she uses flashcards with no pictures to ensure the children can read the sound automatically in isolation.

Ms. Miller: Good.

Students: 'a', /ă/, 't', /t/, 'c', /c/

Narrator: Ms. Miller provides quick, direct, explicit instruction to correct errors.

Students: 'b' ...

Ms. Miller: Oh, let's look again. It says straight back, big belly, 'b'. Let's do it together.

Ms. Miller and students: 'b', /b/ 

Ms. Miller: Very good.

Ms. Miller and students: 'm', /m/

Ms. Miller: So what we're going to do today is we're going to have some fun making words. Are you ready to make words?

Students: Yes.

Ms. Miller: Okay, here we go. Some of the words are going to be real words, and some might be nonsense words. Who knows what a nonsense word is? Tell me, Ilia.

Iia: They're words that are not real.

Ms. Miller: Words that are not real. They do not make any sense. Avery already told us that our blue letters are different. What's different about the blue letters, Shane?

Shane: The vowels.

Ms. Miller: They're vowels. Very good. Okay, we're going to start by just reading a word. Okay. We're going to say each sound in the word, and then I'm going to move them a little bit closer together, and then we're going to say the sounds and then I'm going to move 'em a little closer together, but we're not going to read it until they are touching and I say "catch it." Are you ready?

Students: Yes.

Ms. Miller: Okay. So I want to hear everybody's voice. Let's do it.

Students: /s/, /ă/, /t/

Students: /s/, /ă/, /t/

Ms. Miller: [whispering] Listen for the word. Are you guys ready? We're going to catch it this time. They're touching.

Students: /s/, /ă/, /t/ ... sat.

Ms. Miller: Good. Okay. What word was that?

Students: Sat.

Ms. Miller: Sat. Good. Okay.

Antonio Fierro: Let's use the builder word strategy with digraphs. The word is ship ... ship. I saw a ship out in the ocean ... ship. Right? Now you say it. Right ... ship. Let's see how many phonemes are in the word ship ... /sh/, /ĭ/, /p/. Oh, good, three. So we'll have three lines ... /sh/, /ĭ/, /p/. What's a grapheme that represents that /sh/? Mmmm, 'sh'. Oh, and don't forget, this is my digraph. I have two letters coming together to make one sound, right? My vowel ... /sh/, /ĭ/ ... What graphene? 'i'. And the final phoneme is /p/. What about the grapheme? 'p'. Let's write it out ... ship. Ship.