A guide to blending sounds

together to read words

 Pointto and sound out each sound individually.
Ensure that the children are saying the sound
the letter makes not the name of the letter
i.e. /s/ not s.
 Thisallows children to recognise each sound
and note if there are two letters that come
together to make one sound (This is known as a
diagraph e.g. ee, ai, ar, ch, sh, qu)
 Thisstep also builds confidence as the children
realise that they can read each individual
sound and the next step is to blend those
sounds together: “I can do it”
s
a
t
 Go back to the start of the word. Cover all letters
except the first sound.
*NB* Only uncover sounds not just individual letters
 Say the first sound e.g. ‘s’
 Uncover the next sound and say it e.g. ‘a’
 Blend the two sounds together e.g. ‘s-a’  ‘sa’
 Uncover the next sound and say it e.g. ‘t’
 Blend the two sounds together e.g. ‘sa-t’  ‘sat’

 Ensure the children read the sounds and don’t guess the word
s

s-a  sa

sa-t  sat
Further activities:
 Put the word in a sentence: I sat on the chair.
 Think of words that rhyme with the word just read
e.g. pat, cat, mat, hat, etc.
 Pointto and sound out each sound individually.
Ensure that the children are saying the sound
the letter makes not the name of the letter
i.e. /g/ not g.
 Thisallows children to recognise each sound
and note if there are two letters that come
together to make one sound (This is known as a
diagraph e.g. ee, ai, ar, ch, sh, qu)
 Thisstep also builds confidence as the children
realise that they can read each individual
sound and the next step is to blend those
sounds together: “I can do it”
g
r
ee
n
 Go back to the start of the word. Cover all letters except the
first sound.

*NB* Only uncover sounds not just individual letters

 Say the first sound e.g. ‘g’

 Uncover the next sound and say it e.g. ‘r’

 Blend the two sounds together e.g. ‘g-r’  ‘gr’
 Uncover the next sound and say it e.g. ‘ee’

 Blend the two sounds together e.g. ‘gr-ee’  ‘gree’

 Uncover the next sound and say it e.g. ‘n’

 Blend the two sounds together e.g. ‘gree-n’  ‘green’

 Ensure the children read the sounds and don’t guess the word
 g

g-r  gr

gr-ee  gree

gree-n  green
Further activities:
 Put the word in a sentence: The grass is green.
 Think of words that rhyme with the word just read
e.g. seen, teen, been, queen.