One of the 1st graders I work with CANNOT blend. She can get the individual sounds of letters but cannot put them together for a word. The teacher is having me use a combination of 3-letter word wheels and very simple decodable readers.
What I’ve been doing is having her sound out and put together 2 letter combinations and then trying to add in the third letter. For example, I’ll start her with “at” and have her write “a” saying the sound as she writes and then “t” saying the sound. Then I encourage her to blend them together showing her how my lips move with the sound and trying to get her to repeat it the same way. Since she can’t seem to repeat sounds that she hears I’m trying to get her to repeat them by how the mouth and lips are shaped when saying them. I don’t know if this makes sense, but it’s the only way I can get her to do this. And even then she still has great difficulty with this!
I also have her write, say, and slowly underline the letter combinations into a blend “mat,” “sat,” “cat,” etc… from the word wheel. (Sort of like a PG technique).
In additon, I’m also trying to teach her how to rhyme. Since she can’t do this on her own I’m having her repeat my rhyming of the 3 letter word combinations.
Unfortunately, I only get to work with her 15 minutes (at most!) a day and am limited in the materials I can use.
Does anyone here have any suggestions on what I might be able to do to try and help her learn how to blend and rhyme? Activities, ideas???
Thanks!
Re: Working w/kid who can't rhyme or blend AT ALL!
As I’ve mentioned before, I wouldn’t get too worried about rhyming at all. I’ve taught a couple of kids to read quite adequately, when they couldn’t rhyme to save their lives. Rhyming can wait, while you focus on blending. Less confusing for the kid this way anyway since rhyming looks at words from the back end, can really mess up tracking direction; I have several kids now who recognize words from the back end so “what” and “that”, “when” and “then”, are the same word, aarrrgh. Better not to do it that to get that habit.
It’s still fairly early in Grade 1 and while yes, it would sure be nice if she were blending independently, well, some kids take a while longer.
What I do is model the blending and have the child say it with me. If she isn’t hearing it (and has her auditory functioning been investigated?), she can look at your lips while you’re doing it. I do the word over and over, five or more times, first each letter sound individually, then one following the other, then very slowly blended, then slow normal speech. She should say the sound looking at your lips, then say it again while tracing the letter. I don’t expect kids to blend independently at first; I show them how to do it until they learn the words, and gradually they learn to sound by themselves.
Re: Working w/kid who can't rhyme or blend AT ALL!
I don’t know if she’s getting speech (or anything for that matter. I’m just Title I). The only thing the teacher has mentioned is that neither parent knows how to read or write (in English at least, I don’t know about Spanish…but I’m assuming that may be the case as well).
Patti, thanks for the “hand movement” suggestion. At this point I’m trying to be as multi-sensory as possible! I used to have that Discovery Toys tape when my kids were little (I played it for them MANY a night at bedtime). Unfortunately I don’t have it anymore otherwise I’d make a copy for her. But I’ll definitely add in the hand movements.
Victoria, good point about rhyming and the fixation on the end of words. I’ll try the added repetition and modeling you’ve described.
One positive is she’s easy to work with (no hyperactivity or attentional issues that I can see). She is really trying to get this stuff. The wheels are spinning! Yet, she’s one of the lowest readers I’ve ever worked with.
Thanks again for the great advice!
would be appropriate here…things like Sounds like fun from Discovery Toys. She can learn the letter sounds in a fun way through music…Is she on the speech path’s caseload? Does she have any history of ear infections? Also what I do with kids who are apraxic and can’t talk very well and in this instance (this little gal can’t blend sounds to make words). I grab their hand and move it as I move from one sound to the next. I would just have her blend VC and CV words slowly…and then build up to CVC words. But you move her hand lifting of with the first sound and holding the vowel and then landing on the table with the last consonant.. The fancy word for this is Melodic Intonation Therapy and it works to help motor stroke patients through their apraxia of speech to blend sounds into words.