Both teachers and parents play a remarkable role in a child's overall development. It applies to their reading development, too. A kid with superior reading proficiency can become a good communicator and express himself in any situation. It can shape the child's personality, public reputation, and life journey. However, developing reading skills isn't easy. A child needs to navigate complex processes to finally reach the level of reading fluency and automaticity. When it happens, they don't need to memorize spellings or words. Instead, they can immediately pronounce them. One component that can help them during their reading training is blending.
You can teach your child how to blend sounds to pronounce words at home using
decodable readers. These texts follow scientifically proven reading methods, encouraging parents and teachers to introduce new lessons by making children familiar with letter and word sounds. Do you want to help your kids with blending? Let’s examine this component a little.
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Overview of the blending method
Before introducing your child to this concept, it would be beneficial if you understood the role and importance of this specific component in reading. Blending refers to the practice of joining independent sounds or phonemes to construct words. Suppose you read the sounds /h/, /a/, and /t/ to your child. If your child is aware of blending, you can expect them to blend these sounds into the word 'hat.’ Continuous reading and practice sessions can eventually enable your child to break new words into smaller units of sounds and patterns, and then combine them to form letters and spellings that help build their word identification skills. However, you must present the newly learned words to them in different contexts and texts so that they can remember them accurately.
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The importance of blending in reading development
Everyone knows that a rich vocabulary can make someone a distinguished reader. Hence, it’s important that you teach your kids unfamiliar words from time to time. However, this doesn’t mean you should make them memorize words. To help them decode words, you should work on their foundational knowledge of phonics. Blending can become an important tool in this context. Those who know how to blend sounds can become fluent readers with strong comprehension skills. They can learn new words faster than others, resulting in a rich vocabulary. Blending is also good for their reading confidence. They can enjoy reading more.
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Essential blending exercises for children
Using decodable texts for guidance can be the best thing. You can use them to enhance your child's phonemic awareness, which involves sound isolation and segmentation. Find some creative ways to make their lessons more engaging. For example, pronounce the sounds /s/, /a/, and /t/, and ask your child to blend them into a word. Choose a book that starts with simple two- to three-letter words. Once your child becomes comfortable with them, you can add four-letter words. Also, the learning process should engage your kid’s multiple senses to help them grasp concepts better.
You can contribute to your child’s reading development at home in many ways. Introducing the concept of blending is just an example. Like other parents, you may wonder about choosing the right time for teaching these lessons. While there is no strict rule, children aged 5 or 6 can be the perfect candidates. You can easily find decodable books for this age group.
