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:

1. Consonant blends can be found at the beginning or end of a syllable.
2. Many (not all) beginning blends are often separated into l blends, r blends and s blends.
3. 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.
4. Most blends contain two consonants, but there are some blends like str, scr and spr that contain three letters.
5. Digraph blends are blends that contain a digraph and another consonant (i.e. nch in lunch and thr in thrill).
6. 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.

[Read more…]