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Skill Explainer

3.1 Prepare for Instruction on Blends

Blends Skill Explainer

Illustration of using Elkonin boxes.
Video thumbnail for Build-a-Word: Beginning Blends
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Antonio Fierro: Let's use the build-a-word strategy with blends. The word is sled. I rode my sled down the hill. Sled. What's the word? Sled. Let's see how many sounds, how many phonemes are in the word sled ... /s/, /l/, /ĕ/, /d/. Four. So we need four lines ... /s/, /l/, /ĕ/, /d/. The first phoneme, or sound, is /s/. What's the grapheme ... 's'. The second phoneme, or sound ... /l/. Grapheme ... 'l'. /ĕ/, grapheme ... 'e', right? And the final phoneme, or sound, in the word sled is /d/, which graphene ... the 'd', right? Let's write that ... 's', 'l', 'e', 'd' ... sled.

Video thumbnail for Build-a-Word: Spelling Words With Ending Blends
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Antonio Fierro: Let's use the build-a-word strategy with blends, but in the final position. The word is best. "Marion is my best friend." What's the word? Best. Alright, let's identify those phonemes. Best. /b/, /ĕ/, s/, /t/. Best. /b/, /ĕ/, s/, /t/. I have four phonemes, so I have four lines. /b/, /ĕ/, /s/, /t/. All right. The first phoneme is /b/. Which grapheme represents that sound? Letter 'b'. /ĕ/ ... hmm ... Which grapheme? /ĕ/ ... 'e'. /s/ ... Which grapheme? 's'. And the final is /t/ ... Which grapheme? 't'. Here is my blend in the final position. Let's go ahead and write the word "best." Best.

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Beginning Blends Word List

This list includes words, phrases, and sentences to use when teaching beginning blends.

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Ending Blends Word List

This list includes words, phrases, and sentences to use when teaching ending blends.

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Flash Card Deck with Pictures

These letter flash cards with pictures are 5x7 in size so that two cards print per sheet of paper.

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Flash Card Deck Without Pictures

These letter flash cards without pictures are 5x7 in size so that two cards print per sheet of paper.

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Dictation Sheet

Use this sheet with young students during the dictation portion of your lesson. Students can practice handwriting as well as spelling words, phrases, and sentences with beginning and ending blends.

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