Digraphs in Reading What It Is Like
What are blends and digraphs? And what's the best way to teach them? In that location are very common questions I get all the time and so in this post, I'm talking all about consonant blends and digraphs, how to teach them, and providing you with some gratuitous discussion lists and resource as well!
Consonant Blends
Consonant blends are when two or more than consonants are blended together, but you lot however hear each audio, such equally in the words black and mist . Consonant blends are too referred to as consonant clusters.
There are first consonant blends and final consonant blends. Beginning consonant blends are blends that appear at the beginning of a word, such as brick and clay. Last consonant blends and blends that are at the end of a word, such as task and bend .
Some other examples of consonant blends include L blends, R blends, and South blends: black, frown, star.
iii Letter Blends
In add-on to 2 letter of the alphabet blends, we have iii letter blends, such as stream and splash. In these consonant blends, we can hear all three consonant sounds.
Consonant Blends Word List
Since I know having a consonant blends words list helps with planning, I created one that you can download for gratis in my freebies library.
Acquire more than about teaching l-blends hither.
Consonant Digraphs
Consonant digraphs are different from consonant blends. A consonant digraph is when two consonants stand for ONE new sound. For example, the words chin and wish contain consonant digraphs that make one audio. (Note that we also have vowel digraphs, aka vowel teams, in which the same principle applies: ii messages correspond ane sound.)
Trigraphs are when three consonants represent one sound, as in patch .
Many digraphs are commonly referred to as the 'H Brothers' because they end in H: ch, sh, th, wh, and ph.
Consonant Digraphs Word List
Here's a consonant digraphs word list which yous can also download for free in my freebies library.
Learn more nigh teaching the H brothers digraphs here.
Blends and Digraphs Nautical chart
I likewise fabricated this blends and digraphs chart as a reference sheet you can post in the classroom or provide 1 to each of your students. This contains the near common blends and digraphs with a keyword and image. You tin can download this for free in my freebies library too.
How To Teach Digraphs and Blends
Blends don't really need to be taught, since they are merely sounds they already know. What some students might demand is to practice blending and mapping words with consonant blends.
It'south of import that students learn to focus on the sounds these letters represent. It'south very common for struggling readers to not hear a sound in a blend, or not realize they are misspelling a blend considering they call up it'southward 1 sound when it's actually two or more.
You lot should, even so, explicitly teach consonant digraphs in a systematic way. You lot don't want to introduce besides many new digraphs, simply one or a few at a time, and provide lots of meaningful practice earlier moving to the side by side set. Students should be confident with all their consonants before introducing digraphs.
Use Phonogram Cards
When you introduce a new digraph, use phonogram cards or a phonics poster. Using the carte, you would innovate the new sound, say the keyword, and spell the audio aloud, all while showing the phonogram card to your students. Your students volition echo this and you would review using this carte every day until mastered.
Read Words With Consonant Digraphs and Blends
Of course, you have to include actually reading words with consonant digraphs and blends if that's what you're working on.
I similar to take a page for each digraph or blend that contains a list of words. Students highlight the specific digraph or blend and read the words. See the picture below for an example page from my Fifty- Blends Activities. This is usually the get-go activeness I do when introducing a new phonogram or spelling pattern.
1 affair to annotation, and this is something I learned more recently, is that you should highlight each sound in a alloy in a different color to remind students that they are 2 sounds, dissimilar a digraph.
Find some good decodable text if you can, or create your ain. You tin also simply go on a digraph/blends hunt and take students scan any passage for words with digraphs.
Pictured below is a decodable passage from my H Brothers Digraphs Activities. I take students highlight each digraph with a different color before reading it.
You can also take students write or blend words with the digraphs or blends, or make words with phonogram cards or magnetic letters.
Phoneme Grapheme Mapping & Segmenting
I listed these together considering they go hand in hand. Phoneme grapheme mapping and segmenting are two of the best activities for instruction digraphs and blends. By sounding out the word and associating each sound with a graphic symbol, students more easily read and spell consonant digraphs and blends. See below for an case of this activity using my Word Mapping Template.
Recollect that when you are segmenting a discussion with blends, they do non go together in 1 audio box, but digraphs do get together in one audio box. Some fun ideas for segmenting include using Elkonin boxes, counting cubes, silicone chimera poppers, or any manipulative you take on hand.
Read more: Phoneme Grapheme Mapping Activities and How To Teach Phoneme Segmentation
Phonics Games
Games are ever on the menu when practicing any phonics skills. There are so many free and affordable games on Teachers Pay Teachers that focus on consonant digraphs and blends. And you can always brand your own if you're good at that kind of stuff.
Below are 2 of the games included in my H Brothers Digraphs Activities and 50 Blends Activities. Both sets contain a variety of activities for each skill.
Dictation
I love using dictation in my lessons then no surprise y'all're seeing information technology here again. Later working on your target phonics skill, practice a quick dictation at the terminate of your lesson. I similar to do these at the end of every tutoring session just in the classroom, you can practice them every 2-iii days with the whole course or at the end of a pocket-size grouping activity.
Below is an example of a dictation action using my dictation sheets that you can download for costless in my freebies library. Simply choose a few target sounds, words, and sentences (that you explicitly taught, nothing new!) to dictate to students once. This takes a few minutes and gives yous instant feedback virtually who needs more assistance.
When to teach digraphs and blends
When to teach each type depends on your curriculum. Normally, common consonant digraphs like sh and ch are taught starting time because students encounter many words with these graphemes in their early on years. Sometimes trigraphs are taught along with or merely later on digraphs since they represent the same audio. After this, you'll see l-blends, r-blends, and s-blends taught. 3-letter blends are unremarkably taught terminal.
But as I previously stated, you don't accept to spend any time on consonant blends lessons, unless you have students struggling with them.
What most qu, ng, and nk?
These digraphs and blends are constantly being debated. Are they digraphs or blends? Well, since digraphs stand for ONE audio, I would say simply ng is a digraph. Qu and nk clearly represent two sounds and then I would consider them blends. But actually, their label does not matter!
Qu is always taught together because Q is almost always followed by U. But the audio this phonogram represents is /kw/. It'southward up to you if you desire to teach this with digraphs or blends, only I would teach this as a blend that's virtually always one unit.
Nk is similar. You can hear the /ng/ and the /m/ sounds when you say this alloy aloud. I teach this as a welded audio, forth with /ing/, /ang/, /ong/, /ung/ and the variations of vowel+nk. Some programs likewise teach /ild/, /old/, /all/, /am/, and /an/ as welded sounds. I say just teach it the way your curriculum has it. It doesn't matter what they are called, just that students sympathise they are more than than ane sound and can read and spell them.
Bottom Line
Explicit and systematic didactics in consonant digraphs and ample practice mapping and blending consonant blends are the nigh important things to consider when planning to teach blends and digraphs. The activities outlined above volition help you lot effectively teach your students how to read and write blends and digraphs.
Sources:
- Structured Literacy Interventions: Teaching Students with Reading Difficulties, Grades K-6
- How To Teach Spelling by Laura Toby Rudginsky and Elizabeth C. Haskell
- Phonics and Spelling Through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping by Katheryn East. S. Grace
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Digraphs in Reading What It Is Like
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