If your child has trouble putting the sounds together (Blending)

Chirpy Bird says: We recently had a facebook email question from Rebecca. She said her 5 year old daughter was having trouble putting together the sounds to be able to say a word like sat. She recognized s-a-t but couldn’t seem to blend the individual letters into one word: sat. We thought our reply to Rebecca could be helpful to other Moms in teaching their children whether using Alpha-Phonics or any other phonics program. Here is our reply:

Dear Rebecca,

Thank you for using Alpha-Phonics.

I think you will find it a very easy program to use.

The question you write is frequently asked.

The answer is you should try to finish one lesson before going on to the next one.

The solution to your daughter’s sounding out slowly is usually solved by a little extra practice. One tip we have found is for you to place your finger below the word, like sat. Slowly move the finger from left to right and have her sound out the individual sounds as you move your finger. Practice each new word a few times that way, increasing the speed of your finger movement a little each time. Pretty soon she will be putting (blending) the sounds together and s-a-t will become sat to her.

There may be some times when you might want to move ahead to the next lesson even if she has not totally mastered the current lesson. That is ok. Especially this is the case when you have a lesson with a fairly long list of words. You can work back and forth a little, between the current lesson and the new one.

The most important advice I can give you is to be patient. Children all have different speeds of learning the sounds as you go.* Some pick the idea up almost instantly and others take longer. If your daughter needs more time that does not mean there is anything wrong with her. Often a parent will tell us that their child seemed to learn very slowly and, all of a sudden, then seem to take off like lightening.

If each time you will look over the next lesson in the back of the book and read through it, then turn to the corresponding lesson for the student in the front of the book and pretend you are the student, and try it yourself, you will be all set to show it to your student. Each lesson usually takes only a few minutes.

Also, please be sure, if you have not already done so, read through the 3 pages of “Tips” found beginning on page 169. They condense the most often asked questions we have had in our over 30 years of helping parents use Alpha-Phonics.

Please always feel free to contact us if you ever have any other questions.

We know you will both do very well with the program,

–Peter Watt for The Paradigm Co., Inc.