February 15, 2025 • 28 mins
TD Flenaugh discusses strategies for teaching children to read fluently, focusing on consonant blends (CR and FR) and sight words from the Dolch 1000 word list. The episode emphasizes the importance of blending sounds in words and using decodable text to help children recognize patterns and improve reading fluency. Practical activities include oral blending and segmenting of words, letter-sound correspondence, and using pictures to aid second language learners. The passage "Fun at the Crab Pit" is used to illustrate these techniques, encouraging children to sound out words and read with expression. The goal is to provide children with the skills and confidence to read independently.
We drop new episodes every Saturday at 5 p.m. Pacific Time.
Follow us:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fallingforlearning/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/fallingforlearning/
https://linktr.ee/falling4learning
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you want to make sure yourkids are on track to learn how
(00:04):
to read fluently, you want tostick around for this episode,
and we have a resources for you,the rewrite method and the
rewrite method workbook are yourgo to resource for helping kids
to learn to fall in love withwriting. It has the tips, tools,
(00:26):
resources, strategies and skillbuilding activities to help kids
fall out of writing and intoloving. To write, get your book
set today,to get children to be reading on
(00:50):
grade level, it takes specificskills, and the skills that we
will be focusing on today has todo with defining blends, showing
you passages with blends, andtalking about sight words and
defining passages with sightwords. Hi. Thank you so much for
joining the following forlearning podcast. We have this
(01:11):
podcast to help parents andcaregivers with having the
resources, strategies and toolsneeded to make sure that their
children are on track forlearning and to stay on track
for success. All right, let'sget into it. First of all, we
need to be talking about how wedefine blends. Now, blends are
(01:34):
two or three consonants that aretogether at the beginning or end
of a word. Today, we're going tobe focusing on these blends at
the beginning of the word, onlythe letters in a consonant blend
work together to make one sound.
(01:55):
Now what's really notable hereis that all the individual
letters can be heard within thepronunciation. So if you look
here to the left of the screen,there is b r, which is
pronounced b Right. But if youtake those two sounds apart,
there's for B and for R, so youcan hear both sounds, but it is
(02:24):
more efficient to blend byputting them all into one sound,
bruh, like at the beginning ofbrother or bridge or bring
another example are the CRblend. Is the CR blend so
(02:46):
there's CR like at the beginningof crib or crab or Crick or
crack, again, individually, bothletters, the C and the R, have
their sound, CR, sorry for C andlike robot or raccoon, but
(03:06):
together again, as kids areblending words, it is more
efficient. And when I'm sayingblending, in this case, I'm
saying putting together lettersand making words with them,
right? Blending words as they'rereading. Again, we have the
example of PL and DR. DR is abit tricky. We are not going to
(03:31):
have that in our passage today,but I do want to bring up words
with the DR blend in front ofit, because kids often hear ja,
like Jar, but the it is dr, butif you break it down, it's Dr,
very tricky, but the words drum,drag have that Dr in front of
(03:55):
it, and it blends into onesound, and even kids will be
mistaking it for one otherletter, such as the j, j instead
of Dr.
Okay, so the focus of thisepisode will be specifically CR
(04:17):
blended word words with a CRblend at the beginning and fr
blend at the beginning. We willalso have all short vowel
sounds. We will only have wordswith three or four letters, and
we're going to be using sightwords from the Dolch 1000 word
list to make sure that it isdecodable. We are using only the
(04:41):
first 300 not 300 wordsaltogether, but words selected
from the first 300 and the doltsite word list of 1000 Now the
way that I created this list isI put a prompt in chat GPT to.
Create a decodable list. Aspecial note, if you are
(05:04):
teaching your child to read, youprobably have a program or
something like that that isalready doing a scope and
sequence that goes from simpleto more complex. I am providing
this information on the podcast,showing you how you can make
your own decodable text, as wellas letting you know the type of
(05:28):
scope and sequence that youshould be looking for. There are
programs out there that have ascope and sequence that aren't
from most simple to morecomplex, and you should be able
to judge that if you are athome, especially teaching your
child to read, or if you are ateacher that may not have the
(05:48):
best program materials, theseare also skills that may be
overlooked in certain programsbecause they might just focus on
short vowel sounds and they donot focus in on blended letters.
Blend blends, right? These arespecifically called consonant
(06:09):
blends, the CR, the FR, the BL,the FL. So sometimes, when they
don't focus on that, we see thatsome students need more practice
with short vowel sounds, andwe're not sure what it is they
need, and this may be a place togo to give them more support
with blended letters and shortvowel sounds, blended consonant
(06:32):
blends, right and short vowelsounds, so more practice before
they maybe get to the long vowelsounds and different things like
that. So that's something thatyou need to note as you are
learning how to improve readingfor your child, how to give them
support. Not sure where to go.
This is a place to try it,giving them some consonant
(06:52):
blends and giving them a littlebit more focus on reading
decodable text. Again, the sightword list, again, is a place to
go to make sure that your childis recognizing these most used
words in text that they're goingto encounter, and again, is
going to have a directreflection on how well they are
(07:15):
blending words, recognizingwords, and reading fluently
overall. So we're going to talkabout the three letter words
that are used in the passagethat we're going to be using
with our students again at thispoint, this particular lesson
(07:35):
that we're going to go overtoday is for students who
developmentally no short vowelsounds, they have gone over all
of the short vowel sound words,three letter words they would
have the short U, a, e, i, o,all five, Right. And so examples
are run, big pit hop, tap, sit,log, zip. So this is how you
(08:04):
would start the phase of thelesson that begins with their
phonological awareness. Youcould give these words to them
orally, meaning that you're notwriting these words, but you
could ask them to blend togetheroral sounds. For example, if you
(08:28):
give them which word is createdwhen you say, and they could
say, run right. So next word,iG, they would say, big it, pit,
up, hop, app, tap. So again,they should be able to do this
(08:56):
as well as the opposite, whichis you give them a word and they
are able to break it down intoits individual sounds, sit, give
me the sounds in the word sit,it. Give me the sounds in the
word log. Give me the sounds inthe word zip, zip. So the
(09:20):
students should be able to dothat without reading the words,
but at least orally, you givethem a word and they'll be able
to speak it to you, eitherbreaking it down, segmenting,
segmenting it into itsindividual sounds, or reading,
blending right? Those individualcells into one word, okay, the
(09:43):
next phase of this, right? Youcould also blend with them those
four letter words. So I'm goingto give you the oral blending
for the four letter words. Sofirst we have the CR blends, and
they could tell you crab again.
(10:08):
The opposite way, you could askthem crib, break down the sounds
in the word crib, ih, and theycould break it down, right? So
first you give them the sounds,and they tell you the word AB,
crab in the other way. Okay, sonow I'm going to give you the
(10:30):
word break it down for me, intoits individual sound. Segment it
into its individual sounds.
Crib, and they would be able tosay, again, the next phase of
that, you would actually givethe letter sound correspondence.
Practicing those sounds andletters, right? You'll give them
(10:50):
an A. They tell you that asound. I like to say a spells at
B, spells, C spells, becausewhen we use the letter the
terminology spells, they willmake the connection when it goes
into dictation of actually howto write those words. You are
not just practicing letters inisolation, but you will be
(11:13):
spelling with those words.
You'll be writing later. You'llbe reading those words and
making that connection by usingthe word spell instead of saying
the word it says right, actuallyreminding them that they're
going to write using these sametypes of skills and concepts. So
(11:35):
when it comes to blending wordswith letter sound like this is
the phonics part. Notice thatthe word blend is used over and
over again. We were talkingabout oral blending when we
don't have to show them words,or you could even use chips or
something like that, somethingto manipulate those sounds, help
(11:55):
them break them down orallywithout letters. But here, when
you have the letters and thesounds together, and you write
down the word f r o, you writedown the letters, F R, O, G,
which makes the word frog. Youcould help them point at each
letter and make the sound. Andthey would say frog. You would
(12:18):
take them to the next word,Fran. So sometimes you are
telling them how to blend aspecific name also known as a
proper noun, like the word Fran.
You write it down, you help themto blend it for and this is
where I also tell students thattechnique of stretching out the
vowel. So students, of course,can blend by saying each
(12:44):
individual sound when they'repointing to each letter, but
they also could stretch it, andagain, because they know the
blend you taught them theconsonant blend, they could just
say for when they get to a theyjust stretch it for and and
that'll help them to hear theword Fran. Okay. So again, if
(13:07):
students are having problemsblending words together in
phonics, letter soundcorrespondence is to help them
read the word, then you couldhelp them with blending by
stretching out that vowelThe last word is Fred. And the
FR blends that are going to bein the passage that they're
(13:29):
going to read today, and we doalso have gr blends such as grab
and grand again, again, youwould take the students through
each word. Help them blend. Youknow they need to recognize a
consonant blend. Put it togetherinto one sound, gr, AB, gr for
the next word is grin. GR ingrin. Okay. So another note that
(13:56):
we need to make is if yourstudents are having their second
language learners, for example,you may want to have pictures of
a crab, pictures of a crib,pictures of a frog, right? All
of these different things, evenpicture of the girlfriend or
Fred, so that they are makingthe connection right between the
(14:19):
words and the meaning of thewords. So very important tip, if
you have second languagelearner, the second language
learners where English is nottheir first language, and they
are still learning English whenyou are blending words with
them, when you're reading wordswith them, when you're doing it
(14:43):
orally or with the letter soundcorrespondence, actually reading
words, having pictures of whatit is that you are trying to get
them to read or understand orsay is very key in helping them
to come. Comprehend the whatyou're reading, right, what
they're reading, and actuallygrasping that concept that
(15:06):
you're trying to get them tolearn. So this is really, really
important. Next, I'm going to goover the sight words with
students. We're going to pointout words that are not following
rules, right? Because at thispoint, students have learned
short vowel sounds, they'velearned consonant blends, but
(15:27):
they didn't know some of theseother things, and that's why you
teach sight words, but theyconnect words when you're
talking about sentences andparagraphs. So the word and is
pretty easy to sound out ifstudents are knowing how to
blend and it follows the rules,but it's also a word that they
(15:49):
should know, because it's goingto be in many, many passages
throughout their life. The nextword is to here. It does not
follow the rules, ooh, O usuallysays ah or Oh, so that's how you
know it does not follow therules. And let them know here,
the T says T, but the O saysooh, mm hmm, the word the. So
(16:12):
when students learn this, what Inotice is some of them say the
because they're make it likethat long. E, we know that when
we talk most of the time we aresaying the we are not usually
saying the, and it's not reallycorrect, especially if you guys,
(16:32):
you know, were like me, grew upon the King James Version of the
Bible. The is a totallydifferent word. Well, you know,
just an extra E, but again,that's what we should know,
right? T H, E, the like thatregular fall um, they may not
learn that TD sound, the but,and then the E is a schwa or,
(16:55):
uh, like a short U sound aswell, you could say because they
may not be familiar with theschwa The next word is very
simple, as we would think, butsometimes kids get confused. You
can just say A, most of thetime, we do not say I have a
dog. We usually say, I have adog when we're speaking, we
(17:15):
usually say that A, the wordthat's is spelled a as a, and
explaining this to students isimportant. The next word in
again, it follows the rules I,but then the next one does not.
It's two letters is i, s, I saysI, but s in this case, says,
(17:36):
spells, makes the sound of is wedon't usually says, is you
having a good day? Well, we'relike, Is Is he here yet? Is he
here yet? No, we say is soletting them know that this time
the S is saying spelling ormaking the sound of z, that
(17:58):
again, they may not, they maynot know that TD blend th, which
is a vowel diagraph that saysat, so again, it is a sight word
at this point, because we maynot have taught them the vowel
diagraph, sorry, consonantdiagraph of t8 that says and
(18:20):
then on, also follows the rules.
Ah. So after you go through thiswith them, make sure they read
it from beginning to end in amore fluent way. Of course,
these are not sentences, butjust getting in the habit of
(18:40):
reading it smoothly, so they'renot blending out the words every
time, or maybe they have to gothrough it two or three times,
so they're no longer blending ormore, as we know, sometimes it
takes more and to the uh, in isthat on? So those are the sight
words for this passage we'regoing to be reading today. So
(19:02):
today. Let's finally get intothe passage we're going to be
reading. It's called fun at thecrab pit, and really it is a
decodable passage. So I reallywant to highlight the fact that
you should be helping your childread it the first time by going
(19:24):
to each word and sounding it outas they need to. You may find
that they are starting torecognize words without sounding
out every word again. You alsocan read one one sentence and
then have them read the nextsentence, right? Or if you have
more than one kid that you'reworking with, have one kid read
(19:45):
one sentence, another kid readanother sentence, and the
expectation is everyone isfollowing along with their
finger as they read. So alwayshave them read the title. I
noticed that kids want to jumpright into the. Actual text and
ignore the title as they aregoing to be reading. The point
of reading is to be able tocomprehend or understand
(20:08):
whatever they're reading. So itis really, really, really
important that they are actuallysounding out the words right. So
it's not sounding out the words.
It's really important that theyunderstand the words right? They
understand what they're reading.
Again, fun at the crab pit. Soyou might start with the title
with them, and then have themread, and they may need to sound
(20:31):
out each word give themencouragement. And again, it's
going to be pretty slow for alot of students as they're
beginning, and that's okay,encourage, encourage. And let me
say it one more time, encourage.
Okay, Fran and Fred run to thecrab pit and you want to say
it's okay if you made a mistake.
Help them with the word again, abig crab hops up so it might be
(20:56):
their turn, then your turn. Frangrabs a rock fry Fred. Taps the
crab. The crab runs. Fred grins,that crab is fast. Fran spots a
frog. The frog hops in, plop.
Frog in the pit. Fran yells,Fred runs to the frog. The frog
slips out. That frog is quick.
(21:18):
Fred yells, the PAL sit on alog, crabs and frogs, zip and
hop. Fran grins, okay, so again,I'm going to tell you again,
resist the urge to read thispassage to them the first time.
Resist the urge reading apassage to them the first time
(21:40):
this is a decodable passage.
Give them the experience ofreading a passage on their own.
The more you do this, the morethey'll set that expectation of
independence and reading ontheir own. And they'll get
better and better and better atthis. It will start off slow.
They will be sounding out theword Fran every time, and that's
(22:02):
okay. That is the process. Givethem encouragement and more
encouragement, and help themsound out each word. Okay. The
next thing that you do after youdo that, first read you've
noticed is that I haveunderlined every word. Underline
(22:23):
every word. Sorry, I didn't saythat. I didn't mean to say that
we're underlining specificallythe FR, the consonant blends. So
I'm not going to do all theconsonant blends. I just want
them to to do the ones, maybethe one that you see that stands
(22:48):
out the most, like maybe everytime they see Fran and Fred,
they're trying to say,and instead of an so you want to
say, Okay, guys, let's read itagain, but this time, we're
going to go through andunderline all the FR consonant
blends. And again, you'remarking up the text, underlining
(23:10):
fr, okay, there's an FR, there'san FR. The point of this is
you're getting them in the habitto recognizing patterns when
they're reading, if they'rerecognizing patterns, it helps
them on the phase of becomingmore fluent in their reading.
Now, some people, and I say thisover and over again, some people
(23:33):
say, Oh, yep, fluency is likespeed reading, and it is not. It
is not. It is not. Fluency. Isabout reading like you're
speaking. When I read it thefirst time, I was not reading
with fluency. I wasn't blendingall the I wasn't sounding out
all the words or anything likethat. But it wasn't like I was
(23:54):
talking. So I will model how todo this. Fun at the crap pit.
Fran and Fred run to the crabpit. A big crab pops up. Fran
grabs a rock. Fred taps thecrab. The crab runs. Fred grins,
that crab is fast. Fran spots afrog. The frog hops in, plop.
Frog in the pit. Fran yells.
(24:18):
Fred runs to the frog. The frogslips out. That frog is quick.
Fred yells the PAL sit on a log,crabs and frogs zip and hop.
Fran grins. So as you can see, Iam using expression. I am, you
know, if there's an exclamationpoint, I am using, you know,
(24:38):
again, some emotion when I'mreading, I am reading like I'm
talking. This is a very simplepassage, so again, it's a little
bit harder because it's justreally predictable text, but you
can see that I could just tellyou that story. Obviously it's
not really the way people talk,the way it's written, but the
(24:59):
more they get into the. Habit.
You model it for them. So afterthey've gone through and kind of
struggled through, blended thewords whatever, and read that
first passage, then they've readit a second time, going through
and underlining the FR thatthird time, you could read it
for them in a fluent way.
(25:19):
Remember, I told you a way and amiddle way is to have them read
a sentence, you read a sentence,have them read a sentence, you
read a sentence. Or, again, ifthey're multiple students, have
them, you know, take turns. Soagain, that's a way, but you
don't want to go through andjust read the whole thing for
them the first time, they aregoing to have a little struggle,
and that's fine. Go back, goback. Think back when your child
(25:42):
was learning how to walk. Youcannot take those steps for
them. When they have to fallafter that first step. You can't
just pick them up and take careof them and make sure it's okay
for them. They need to go tothat process. And our five and
six year olds are now runningaround, maybe moving faster than
we are, and they only got therebecause they struggle to make
(26:06):
those steps, not because youpick them up when they fail,
every time they fail, and yousay, I'm just going to pick them
up and carry them around becauseI don't want them to fall No.
Struggling is part of theprocess, the encouragement that
you give them, the patience thatyou give them when they are
sounding out crab for the fifthtime in the passage, and maybe
you're like, they should knowit. Encourage, encourage,
(26:29):
encourage, okay, that's how weget there. So we're going to do
a quick review defining blends.
Right? We went over some blends.
Those are two or threeconsonants that are together at
the beginning of a word, theletters in the consonant blend
work together to make one sound,but individually they all keep
(26:50):
their individual sound. Okay, sobruh CR, right, and so on. They
make they both have theirsounds. Sounds stay the same,
but when they're blending thesewords, letter sounds,
correspondence as they'rereading it through the phonics
(27:12):
part, they should be saying,bruh, they shouldn't say. It
slows them down as they'reblending. Okay, the focus of
this episode were the CR and theFR consonant blends. They had
short vowel sounds, right? Weonly had three or four letters,
and we had the sight words fromthe Dolch 1000 word list. We
(27:36):
only used words the sight wordsthat were from the first 300
words to keep it very simple andpredictable for young readers.
Now, if you following me, youknow, make sure that you know
that you should implement tryout these things with your
(27:57):
child. Try it out with yourstudents, because this is going
to make the difference for yourchildren, giving them the
competitive advantage, right?
This podcast is about makingsure they're on track and that
they have that competitiveadvantage. Thanks again for
joining us. Thanks again forsupporting the falling for
learning podcast. New Episodesgo live every Saturday at 5pm
(28:18):
you can watch us on youtube.comat falling for learning, or
listen on all major podcastplatforms such as Apple, Google,
Audible, Spotify and much morefor More resources, visit
falling in love withlearning.com we really
(28:41):
appreciate you. Have a wonderfulweek. You.
If you want to make sure yourkids are on track to learn how
(00:04):
to read fluently, you want tostick around for this episode,
and we have a resources for you,the rewrite method and the
rewrite method workbook are yourgo to resource for helping kids
to learn to fall in love withwriting. It has the tips, tools,
(00:26):
resources, strategies and skillbuilding activities to help kids
fall out of writing and intoloving. To write, get your book
set today,to get children to be reading on
(00:50):
grade level, it takes specificskills, and the skills that we
will be focusing on today has todo with defining blends, showing
you passages with blends, andtalking about sight words and
defining passages with sightwords. Hi. Thank you so much for
joining the following forlearning podcast. We have this
(01:11):
podcast to help parents andcaregivers with having the
resources, strategies and toolsneeded to make sure that their
children are on track forlearning and to stay on track
for success. All right, let'sget into it. First of all, we
need to be talking about how wedefine blends. Now, blends are
(01:34):
two or three consonants that aretogether at the beginning or end
of a word. Today, we're going tobe focusing on these blends at
the beginning of the word, onlythe letters in a consonant blend
work together to make one sound.
(01:55):
Now what's really notable hereis that all the individual
letters can be heard within thepronunciation. So if you look
here to the left of the screen,there is b r, which is
pronounced b Right. But if youtake those two sounds apart,
there's for B and for R, so youcan hear both sounds, but it is
(02:24):
more efficient to blend byputting them all into one sound,
bruh, like at the beginning ofbrother or bridge or bring
another example are the CRblend. Is the CR blend so
(02:46):
there's CR like at the beginningof crib or crab or Crick or
crack, again, individually, bothletters, the C and the R, have
their sound, CR, sorry for C andlike robot or raccoon, but
(03:06):
together again, as kids areblending words, it is more
efficient. And when I'm sayingblending, in this case, I'm
saying putting together lettersand making words with them,
right? Blending words as they'rereading. Again, we have the
example of PL and DR. DR is abit tricky. We are not going to
(03:31):
have that in our passage today,but I do want to bring up words
with the DR blend in front ofit, because kids often hear ja,
like Jar, but the it is dr, butif you break it down, it's Dr,
very tricky, but the words drum,drag have that Dr in front of
(03:55):
it, and it blends into onesound, and even kids will be
mistaking it for one otherletter, such as the j, j instead
of Dr.
Okay, so the focus of thisepisode will be specifically CR
(04:17):
blended word words with a CRblend at the beginning and fr
blend at the beginning. We willalso have all short vowel
sounds. We will only have wordswith three or four letters, and
we're going to be using sightwords from the Dolch 1000 word
list to make sure that it isdecodable. We are using only the
(04:41):
first 300 not 300 wordsaltogether, but words selected
from the first 300 and the doltsite word list of 1000 Now the
way that I created this list isI put a prompt in chat GPT to.
Create a decodable list. Aspecial note, if you are
(05:04):
teaching your child to read, youprobably have a program or
something like that that isalready doing a scope and
sequence that goes from simpleto more complex. I am providing
this information on the podcast,showing you how you can make
your own decodable text, as wellas letting you know the type of
(05:28):
scope and sequence that youshould be looking for. There are
programs out there that have ascope and sequence that aren't
from most simple to morecomplex, and you should be able
to judge that if you are athome, especially teaching your
child to read, or if you are ateacher that may not have the
(05:48):
best program materials, theseare also skills that may be
overlooked in certain programsbecause they might just focus on
short vowel sounds and they donot focus in on blended letters.
Blend blends, right? These arespecifically called consonant
(06:09):
blends, the CR, the FR, the BL,the FL. So sometimes, when they
don't focus on that, we see thatsome students need more practice
with short vowel sounds, andwe're not sure what it is they
need, and this may be a place togo to give them more support
with blended letters and shortvowel sounds, blended consonant
(06:32):
blends, right and short vowelsounds, so more practice before
they maybe get to the long vowelsounds and different things like
that. So that's something thatyou need to note as you are
learning how to improve readingfor your child, how to give them
support. Not sure where to go.
This is a place to try it,giving them some consonant
(06:52):
blends and giving them a littlebit more focus on reading
decodable text. Again, the sightword list, again, is a place to
go to make sure that your childis recognizing these most used
words in text that they're goingto encounter, and again, is
going to have a directreflection on how well they are
(07:15):
blending words, recognizingwords, and reading fluently
overall. So we're going to talkabout the three letter words
that are used in the passagethat we're going to be using
with our students again at thispoint, this particular lesson
(07:35):
that we're going to go overtoday is for students who
developmentally no short vowelsounds, they have gone over all
of the short vowel sound words,three letter words they would
have the short U, a, e, i, o,all five, Right. And so examples
are run, big pit hop, tap, sit,log, zip. So this is how you
(08:04):
would start the phase of thelesson that begins with their
phonological awareness. Youcould give these words to them
orally, meaning that you're notwriting these words, but you
could ask them to blend togetheroral sounds. For example, if you
(08:28):
give them which word is createdwhen you say, and they could
say, run right. So next word,iG, they would say, big it, pit,
up, hop, app, tap. So again,they should be able to do this
(08:56):
as well as the opposite, whichis you give them a word and they
are able to break it down intoits individual sounds, sit, give
me the sounds in the word sit,it. Give me the sounds in the
word log. Give me the sounds inthe word zip, zip. So the
(09:20):
students should be able to dothat without reading the words,
but at least orally, you givethem a word and they'll be able
to speak it to you, eitherbreaking it down, segmenting,
segmenting it into itsindividual sounds, or reading,
blending right? Those individualcells into one word, okay, the
(09:43):
next phase of this, right? Youcould also blend with them those
four letter words. So I'm goingto give you the oral blending
for the four letter words. Sofirst we have the CR blends, and
they could tell you crab again.
(10:08):
The opposite way, you could askthem crib, break down the sounds
in the word crib, ih, and theycould break it down, right? So
first you give them the sounds,and they tell you the word AB,
crab in the other way. Okay, sonow I'm going to give you the
(10:30):
word break it down for me, intoits individual sound. Segment it
into its individual sounds.
Crib, and they would be able tosay, again, the next phase of
that, you would actually givethe letter sound correspondence.
Practicing those sounds andletters, right? You'll give them
(10:50):
an A. They tell you that asound. I like to say a spells at
B, spells, C spells, becausewhen we use the letter the
terminology spells, they willmake the connection when it goes
into dictation of actually howto write those words. You are
not just practicing letters inisolation, but you will be
(11:13):
spelling with those words.
You'll be writing later. You'llbe reading those words and
making that connection by usingthe word spell instead of saying
the word it says right, actuallyreminding them that they're
going to write using these sametypes of skills and concepts. So
(11:35):
when it comes to blending wordswith letter sound like this is
the phonics part. Notice thatthe word blend is used over and
over again. We were talkingabout oral blending when we
don't have to show them words,or you could even use chips or
something like that, somethingto manipulate those sounds, help
(11:55):
them break them down orallywithout letters. But here, when
you have the letters and thesounds together, and you write
down the word f r o, you writedown the letters, F R, O, G,
which makes the word frog. Youcould help them point at each
letter and make the sound. Andthey would say frog. You would
(12:18):
take them to the next word,Fran. So sometimes you are
telling them how to blend aspecific name also known as a
proper noun, like the word Fran.
You write it down, you help themto blend it for and this is
where I also tell students thattechnique of stretching out the
vowel. So students, of course,can blend by saying each
(12:44):
individual sound when they'repointing to each letter, but
they also could stretch it, andagain, because they know the
blend you taught them theconsonant blend, they could just
say for when they get to a theyjust stretch it for and and
that'll help them to hear theword Fran. Okay. So again, if
(13:07):
students are having problemsblending words together in
phonics, letter soundcorrespondence is to help them
read the word, then you couldhelp them with blending by
stretching out that vowelThe last word is Fred. And the
FR blends that are going to bein the passage that they're
(13:29):
going to read today, and we doalso have gr blends such as grab
and grand again, again, youwould take the students through
each word. Help them blend. Youknow they need to recognize a
consonant blend. Put it togetherinto one sound, gr, AB, gr for
the next word is grin. GR ingrin. Okay. So another note that
(13:56):
we need to make is if yourstudents are having their second
language learners, for example,you may want to have pictures of
a crab, pictures of a crib,pictures of a frog, right? All
of these different things, evenpicture of the girlfriend or
Fred, so that they are makingthe connection right between the
(14:19):
words and the meaning of thewords. So very important tip, if
you have second languagelearner, the second language
learners where English is nottheir first language, and they
are still learning English whenyou are blending words with
them, when you're reading wordswith them, when you're doing it
(14:43):
orally or with the letter soundcorrespondence, actually reading
words, having pictures of whatit is that you are trying to get
them to read or understand orsay is very key in helping them
to come. Comprehend the whatyou're reading, right, what
they're reading, and actuallygrasping that concept that
(15:06):
you're trying to get them tolearn. So this is really, really
important. Next, I'm going to goover the sight words with
students. We're going to pointout words that are not following
rules, right? Because at thispoint, students have learned
short vowel sounds, they'velearned consonant blends, but
(15:27):
they didn't know some of theseother things, and that's why you
teach sight words, but theyconnect words when you're
talking about sentences andparagraphs. So the word and is
pretty easy to sound out ifstudents are knowing how to
blend and it follows the rules,but it's also a word that they
(15:49):
should know, because it's goingto be in many, many passages
throughout their life. The nextword is to here. It does not
follow the rules, ooh, O usuallysays ah or Oh, so that's how you
know it does not follow therules. And let them know here,
the T says T, but the O saysooh, mm hmm, the word the. So
(16:12):
when students learn this, what Inotice is some of them say the
because they're make it likethat long. E, we know that when
we talk most of the time we aresaying the we are not usually
saying the, and it's not reallycorrect, especially if you guys,
(16:32):
you know, were like me, grew upon the King James Version of the
Bible. The is a totallydifferent word. Well, you know,
just an extra E, but again,that's what we should know,
right? T H, E, the like thatregular fall um, they may not
learn that TD sound, the but,and then the E is a schwa or,
(16:55):
uh, like a short U sound aswell, you could say because they
may not be familiar with theschwa The next word is very
simple, as we would think, butsometimes kids get confused. You
can just say A, most of thetime, we do not say I have a
dog. We usually say, I have adog when we're speaking, we
(17:15):
usually say that A, the wordthat's is spelled a as a, and
explaining this to students isimportant. The next word in
again, it follows the rules I,but then the next one does not.
It's two letters is i, s, I saysI, but s in this case, says,
(17:36):
spells, makes the sound of is wedon't usually says, is you
having a good day? Well, we'relike, Is Is he here yet? Is he
here yet? No, we say is soletting them know that this time
the S is saying spelling ormaking the sound of z, that
(17:58):
again, they may not, they maynot know that TD blend th, which
is a vowel diagraph that saysat, so again, it is a sight word
at this point, because we maynot have taught them the vowel
diagraph, sorry, consonantdiagraph of t8 that says and
(18:20):
then on, also follows the rules.
Ah. So after you go through thiswith them, make sure they read
it from beginning to end in amore fluent way. Of course,
these are not sentences, butjust getting in the habit of
(18:40):
reading it smoothly, so they'renot blending out the words every
time, or maybe they have to gothrough it two or three times,
so they're no longer blending ormore, as we know, sometimes it
takes more and to the uh, in isthat on? So those are the sight
words for this passage we'regoing to be reading today. So
(19:02):
today. Let's finally get intothe passage we're going to be
reading. It's called fun at thecrab pit, and really it is a
decodable passage. So I reallywant to highlight the fact that
you should be helping your childread it the first time by going
(19:24):
to each word and sounding it outas they need to. You may find
that they are starting torecognize words without sounding
out every word again. You alsocan read one one sentence and
then have them read the nextsentence, right? Or if you have
more than one kid that you'reworking with, have one kid read
(19:45):
one sentence, another kid readanother sentence, and the
expectation is everyone isfollowing along with their
finger as they read. So alwayshave them read the title. I
noticed that kids want to jumpright into the. Actual text and
ignore the title as they aregoing to be reading. The point
of reading is to be able tocomprehend or understand
(20:08):
whatever they're reading. So itis really, really, really
important that they are actuallysounding out the words right. So
it's not sounding out the words.
It's really important that theyunderstand the words right? They
understand what they're reading.
Again, fun at the crab pit. Soyou might start with the title
with them, and then have themread, and they may need to sound
(20:31):
out each word give themencouragement. And again, it's
going to be pretty slow for alot of students as they're
beginning, and that's okay,encourage, encourage. And let me
say it one more time, encourage.
Okay, Fran and Fred run to thecrab pit and you want to say
it's okay if you made a mistake.
Help them with the word again, abig crab hops up so it might be
(20:56):
their turn, then your turn. Frangrabs a rock fry Fred. Taps the
crab. The crab runs. Fred grins,that crab is fast. Fran spots a
frog. The frog hops in, plop.
Frog in the pit. Fran yells,Fred runs to the frog. The frog
slips out. That frog is quick.
(21:18):
Fred yells, the PAL sit on alog, crabs and frogs, zip and
hop. Fran grins, okay, so again,I'm going to tell you again,
resist the urge to read thispassage to them the first time.
Resist the urge reading apassage to them the first time
(21:40):
this is a decodable passage.
Give them the experience ofreading a passage on their own.
The more you do this, the morethey'll set that expectation of
independence and reading ontheir own. And they'll get
better and better and better atthis. It will start off slow.
They will be sounding out theword Fran every time, and that's
(22:02):
okay. That is the process. Givethem encouragement and more
encouragement, and help themsound out each word. Okay. The
next thing that you do after youdo that, first read you've
noticed is that I haveunderlined every word. Underline
(22:23):
every word. Sorry, I didn't saythat. I didn't mean to say that
we're underlining specificallythe FR, the consonant blends. So
I'm not going to do all theconsonant blends. I just want
them to to do the ones, maybethe one that you see that stands
(22:48):
out the most, like maybe everytime they see Fran and Fred,
they're trying to say,and instead of an so you want to
say, Okay, guys, let's read itagain, but this time, we're
going to go through andunderline all the FR consonant
blends. And again, you'remarking up the text, underlining
(23:10):
fr, okay, there's an FR, there'san FR. The point of this is
you're getting them in the habitto recognizing patterns when
they're reading, if they'rerecognizing patterns, it helps
them on the phase of becomingmore fluent in their reading.
Now, some people, and I say thisover and over again, some people
(23:33):
say, Oh, yep, fluency is likespeed reading, and it is not. It
is not. It is not. Fluency. Isabout reading like you're
speaking. When I read it thefirst time, I was not reading
with fluency. I wasn't blendingall the I wasn't sounding out
all the words or anything likethat. But it wasn't like I was
(23:54):
talking. So I will model how todo this. Fun at the crap pit.
Fran and Fred run to the crabpit. A big crab pops up. Fran
grabs a rock. Fred taps thecrab. The crab runs. Fred grins,
that crab is fast. Fran spots afrog. The frog hops in, plop.
Frog in the pit. Fran yells.
(24:18):
Fred runs to the frog. The frogslips out. That frog is quick.
Fred yells the PAL sit on a log,crabs and frogs zip and hop.
Fran grins. So as you can see, Iam using expression. I am, you
know, if there's an exclamationpoint, I am using, you know,
(24:38):
again, some emotion when I'mreading, I am reading like I'm
talking. This is a very simplepassage, so again, it's a little
bit harder because it's justreally predictable text, but you
can see that I could just tellyou that story. Obviously it's
not really the way people talk,the way it's written, but the
(24:59):
more they get into the. Habit.
You model it for them. So afterthey've gone through and kind of
struggled through, blended thewords whatever, and read that
first passage, then they've readit a second time, going through
and underlining the FR thatthird time, you could read it
for them in a fluent way.
(25:19):
Remember, I told you a way and amiddle way is to have them read
a sentence, you read a sentence,have them read a sentence, you
read a sentence. Or, again, ifthey're multiple students, have
them, you know, take turns. Soagain, that's a way, but you
don't want to go through andjust read the whole thing for
them the first time, they aregoing to have a little struggle,
and that's fine. Go back, goback. Think back when your child
(25:42):
was learning how to walk. Youcannot take those steps for
them. When they have to fallafter that first step. You can't
just pick them up and take careof them and make sure it's okay
for them. They need to go tothat process. And our five and
six year olds are now runningaround, maybe moving faster than
we are, and they only got therebecause they struggle to make
(26:06):
those steps, not because youpick them up when they fail,
every time they fail, and yousay, I'm just going to pick them
up and carry them around becauseI don't want them to fall No.
Struggling is part of theprocess, the encouragement that
you give them, the patience thatyou give them when they are
sounding out crab for the fifthtime in the passage, and maybe
you're like, they should knowit. Encourage, encourage,
(26:29):
encourage, okay, that's how weget there. So we're going to do
a quick review defining blends.
Right? We went over some blends.
Those are two or threeconsonants that are together at
the beginning of a word, theletters in the consonant blend
work together to make one sound,but individually they all keep
(26:50):
their individual sound. Okay, sobruh CR, right, and so on. They
make they both have theirsounds. Sounds stay the same,
but when they're blending thesewords, letter sounds,
correspondence as they'rereading it through the phonics
(27:12):
part, they should be saying,bruh, they shouldn't say. It
slows them down as they'reblending. Okay, the focus of
this episode were the CR and theFR consonant blends. They had
short vowel sounds, right? Weonly had three or four letters,
and we had the sight words fromthe Dolch 1000 word list. We
(27:36):
only used words the sight wordsthat were from the first 300
words to keep it very simple andpredictable for young readers.
Now, if you following me, youknow, make sure that you know
that you should implement tryout these things with your
(27:57):
child. Try it out with yourstudents, because this is going
to make the difference for yourchildren, giving them the
competitive advantage, right?
This podcast is about makingsure they're on track and that
they have that competitiveadvantage. Thanks again for
joining us. Thanks again forsupporting the falling for
learning podcast. New Episodesgo live every Saturday at 5pm
(28:18):
you can watch us on youtube.comat falling for learning, or
listen on all major podcastplatforms such as Apple, Google,
Audible, Spotify and much morefor More resources, visit
falling in love withlearning.com we really
(28:41):
appreciate you. Have a wonderfulweek. You.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com