Practising oral blending and segmentation
These blending and segmentation skills were introduced in Phase One with a soft toy that ‘could only speak and understand sound-talk’. Blending and segmenting are the inverse of one another and need regular practice during Phase Two but blending and segmentation with letters should replace oral segmentation and blending as soon as possible.
Practising oral blending
Purpose: To give children oral experience of blending phonemes into words so that they are already familiar with the blending process when they start to read words made from the letter-sounds they are being taughtFrom time to time during the day, say some words in ’sound-talk’. For example:
sound-talk a word in an instruction (e.g. Give yourselves a p-a-t on the back);
say some of the children’s names in sound-talk when sending them to an activity or out to play.
Georgie’s gym
Resources
Soft toy
Procedure
Use the soft toy to give instructions, ‘Georgie says’, for example:
Stand u-p.
Put your hands on your kn-ee-s, on your f-ee-t.
Put your finger on your n-o-se.
Bend one arm round your b-a-ck.
Wiggle your…
What’s missing?
Resources
Set of any six CVC objects from the role-play area (e.g. hospital: soap, pen,chart, book, mug)
List of nine words for the teacher to read out, which includes the six objects and three additional items (e.g. bed, sheet, pill)
Soft toy (optional)
Procedure
Pretext: you (or the soft toy) need to check that you have collected together all the items you need, which are written on your list.
Display the six objects.
Say one of the words on the list using sound-talk, ask the children to repeat it and then tell their partners what it is.
The children look at the items in front of them to see if the object is there.
Practising oral segmentation
Purpose: To give children experience of breaking words up orally into their constituent phonemes so that they can use their knowledge of letter-sounds to spell words
Picnic basket
Resources
Soft toy
List of words, pictures or objects
Procedure
Pretext: the toy is deciding what to put into his picnic basket and the children are asked to help him decide, but he only understands sound-talk.
Ask the children whether he will need an item (e.g. jam).
If the children think he will, ask them to say the word and then tell the toy in sound-talk: jam, j-a-m. The children may benefit from making some action with their hands or arms in time to the sound-talk.
Continue with a series of both suitable and unsuitable items (e.g. cheese, mud, cake, nuts, juice, coal, ham, rolls, soap, mugs, mouse).