Children Chatter Matters 

7. When learning to read and spell words, children need to be able to blend individual sounds together to form new words. For example, t – o – p = top. You can support your child to practice blending sounds together by separating sounds in words and asking them to say what the word is. Use words from their book.

You could also incorporate this into everyday conversation, e.g. “Can you please put this in the b – i – n (bin)”, “We are going to t – ar – g – et (target) to buy a your friend a present”, “Put on you b – oo – t – s (boots)”.

8. When learning to read and spell words, children also need to be able to segment, or break words into sounds. For example, the word ‘sack’ can be split into s – a – ck. It has 3 sounds. Help your child to ‘find’ sounds and ‘break up’ a word into sounds through practice, using words from their book/around the room. Start with simple words, with two or three sounds. Your child might need to use fingers/blocks to support.

For students in Grade 2+, who are capable of breaking simple words into sounds, practice with words that have consonant blends at the start. Consonant blends are two or three speech sounds together that are not vowels, for example: sm, sn, tr, bl, cr, gl…