
Consonant Blends are two or more consonants that are next to each other. Consonant blends are not separated by a vowel. There are a few facts that you should know before teaching blends to your readers:
- Consonant blends can be found at the beginning or end of a syllable.
- Many (not all) beginning blends are often separated into l blends, r blends and s blends.
- Some ending blends include nasal blends (blends with n or m). Blends containing these letters are often the most difficult for beginning readers to read and spell with accuracy.
- Most blends contain two consonants, but there are some blends like str, scr and spr that contain three letters.
- Digraph blends are blends that contain a digraph and another consonant (i.e. nch in lunch and thr in thrill).
- Students who have weak phonemic memory often have difficulty reading and spelling words with blends.
Read on to find some helpful tips about teaching this phonetic concept.
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