Your child knows the sounds but cannot get the word
This is blending, and it is a separate skill from knowing letter sounds. A child can say c, a, t perfectly and still not hear cat. To teach it: hold each sound until it touches the next one instead of stopping between them, fuse the first two sounds into a chunk before adding the last, then say the whole word once more at talking speed. Practise on short words built from sounds she already knows, about ten minutes a night.
The three moves
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Stretch the sounds. No stops.
The tiny silence between sounds is where the word falls apart. Choose sounds you can hold, like m, s, f, a and n, and hold each one until the next one touches it.
Not this: c. a. t. with full stops
This: mmmaaat, all joined up
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Blend two, then add the last.
Three sounds at once is a lot to hold in your head. Join the first two into one chunk, let her hear that chunk, then add the final sound on the end.
Not this: c, a, t as three parts
This: ca, then ca-t, then cat
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Slow once, then normal speed.
First pass slow, so every sound gets heard. Second pass at talking speed. That fast repeat is the moment the pieces snap into a word she owns.
Not this: stay slow forever
This: slow once, then say it fast
The whole move, in order
- Stretch the sounds, no stops
- Blend two, then add the last
- Say it again at normal speed
Ten minutes at bedtime, one short word. That is the whole thing.
The 20 first words
In order. Every one is built from sounds a beginner already has, and every one can be sounded out letter by letter, so there is nothing here she has to be told.
- at
- it
- in
- an
- satstretchy
- sitstretchy
- sipstretchy
- pin
- tap
- pan
- napstretchy
- pit
- tip
- tin
- am
- on
- mapstretchy
- matstretchy
- manstretchy
- cat
Start with the words marked stretchy. They begin with a sound you can hold and hum straight into the next one, which makes move 1 much easier to feel. The others begin with a quick sound that stops dead, so save them for once the melting is working.
How to know it clicked
- She says the word at talking speed, not sound by sound.
- She does not go back and re-sound it to check.
- She does it on a word she has never seen before.
THE PART PAPER CANNOT DO
The card tells you what to say. It cannot tell you if she got it right.
Every move above needs someone listening closely enough to catch which sound went wrong, in the second it goes wrong. That is the tiring part, and it is the part you cannot read off a page. It is also most of what a reading tutor is actually being paid for.
That is the job we built ReadBorn to do. On the screen below she slides the sounds together herself, at her own speed, while the app listens to the whole word on the device and tells her when she has landed it. It never melts the word for her and never says it first, because the melting is the skill she is there to build.
Questions parents ask
What is blending in phonics?
Blending is melting separate letter sounds into one whole word. It is the step between knowing that c says its sound and being able to read cat. Knowing the sounds does not produce it on its own; almost every child has to be taught it.
My child knows all the letter sounds but cannot read words. Is that normal?
Yes, and it is the single most common place beginners stall. It means she has the raw material and is missing one specific skill, not that she is behind. It usually takes days, not months.
Which words should we start with?
Short words made only of sounds she already knows, starting with ones that begin with a stretchy sound like m, s, f or n, because you can hold that first sound and hum it into the next. The twenty words on the card are in that order.
How long should we practise?
About ten minutes, one short word at a time. Stop while it is still going well. Blending gets easier with frequency, not with length.
ReadBorn is an iPhone and iPad app that teaches children to read by phonics for ages 3 to 8 and up. The child sounds words out loud and the app listens with on-device speech recognition, confirms each sound, and hatches a baby animal after every story.