Letter Blending Letter blending is the skill combining sounds together to form words. In the article, Miscese Gagen gives an example and states, “smooth blending is sounding out the word ‘mast’ as /mmaasst/ instead of a choppy or segmented /m/…./a/…./s/…./t/. In simple terms, blending is smoothly ‘hooking the sounds together’ when sounding out words” (2013). Letter blending should be a smooth blend so that students can hear the word coming together instead of hearing each individual sound. It is necessary for developing fluency and phonologic processing that will form the foundation to be able to skillfully read. Without letter blending, students will have trouble reading and will make many spelling errors. Some students will have trouble with letter blending, while it will come naturally for others. Those that struggle pronouncing words usually know the individual sounds, but are not able to say them together smoothly. By the time the student reaches the end of a word, they forget it and then have to start over. Students that struggle, do so the most with words that have four or more sounds. By the time they reach the end, students forget the blended word. Teaching …show more content…
Phonics is necessary for students to understand the basics and can be taught in the ways that were discussed, such as blending letter sounds, word sorts and alphabet matching. Each one allows the students to become a better reader and writer, ultimately helping them in all aspects of their