Do you ever have students that just CANNOT master that consonant blend?! They totally cannot segment words with consonant blends! It’s very sweet to watch but it’s also disheartening because you feel for your little ones!
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen students spell the word "frog" as…FOG. Consonant blends are tricky for students who need extra support. You spent months practicing CVC words and now to up the rigor you add an extra sound!? That’s tricky for a six year old!
As with everything, consistency and repetition is so essential. But you wanna make sure that you pace things appropriately for your students. I love to use my consonant blend intervention unit to support my students who need the additional help. I find that some students need more time and practice with consonant blends, so I made a nine-week intervention unit.
Consonant Blend Scope and Sequence
This nine-week unit breaks down consonant blends into chunks. Rather than focus on all consonant blends at once, I prefer to start with easier blends and move on to the more difficult blends as students gain confidence with blending four to five letter sounds.
S blends are the easiest because S is a continuous sound. Students are able to blend S with other letters like T and P because S continuous into the other letter. Whereas, R is a tricky letter sound to begin with...how many of your first graders still struggle producing the R letter sound on its own!?!?! The order in which you teach consonant blends matters!
Weekly Lesson Plans
Every week has a detailed lesson plan with all resources included. The lesson plans build off previous weeks skills and are consistent activities so students gain confidence.
Students start the lesson with a warm up. All of the students get a chance to practice using their hands to "tap out" and blend consonant blend words.
Daily Activities
Every day students have a variety of different consonant blend activities. Some days students are sorting pictures based on the consonant blends. While other days students are reading a passage with consonant blend words. Each day the students are asked to complete more rigorous activities.
Data Tracking
The best part about this unit is that it includes data tracking! every week you can monitor students progress using this data tracker. Students will be motivated too! every student I’ve ever worked with loves graphing their data and watching their fluency grow every week.
Students are given one minute to read as many consonant blend words as possible. Students are only expected to read words with consonant blends that they have learned in this unit so far. Therefore, it is really assessing what students know. Each week the goal is for students to read more words per minute.
This data tracker is a great way for students to stay motivated and it also is a great tool when talking to parents at parent teacher conference. This gives you concrete data to show parents, this allows you to start a conversation about their child's academic growth.
I know you will find success in the classroom with consonant blends. There are so many different resources out there. It is essential that you spend the time and consistency with your students on consonant blends. Check out my consonant blend intervention unit here! I know you will love it and see so much growth!
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