Common Questions About Successive Blending | Blend Ladders

 I've often had parents and other teachers who are new to successive blending ask me questions. Here are the top 3 questions I get asked. 

1. It is important that students be taught that we are using the short vowel sounds when we are learning to read and using successive blending at the beginning of the year. I teach letter sounds all year long (with fluency drills and our clean up song), and when we get to a vowel we always say both vowel sounds. We also always say the short sound first. The reason we do that, is it's the most common sound of that vowel (or letter). I actually use the Secret Stories Better Alphabet song for my clean up song EVERY day cleaning up centers in Kindergarten. She does a wonderful job of explaining why she does both sounds. 

2. Why are you not saying to (like I am going to the store) when the blend ladder has a to. Same question for any of the blend ladders that do make words. I explicitly teach students that these are NOT words we are reading. They are the beginning of a word. We are learning to blend, not practicing sight words. Which is a whole other thing that I could go on about. But will not right now. If you are tempted or don't know what sound you should be saying, but another consonant on the end to make a CVC word. The beginning sound you say is the one you should be saying. So for the above example think of top. The /to/ sound at the beginning of top is the sounds those two letter make when blended together. 

and lastly, 

3. Everyone else uses word families like -an, and -ot, why don't you?  Don't they need to know about word families?! Why? Why would you teach a struggling to read (whether because they are new to reading and just learning or they have a learning difficulty) by going to the end, and then going back to the beginning?! It honestly makes no sense. I have seen so many children who are trying to do this and by the time they have sounded out the word family, they have no idea what the first letter was. They go back and get that sound, only to forget what the word family was. Think about when you come across a word that is unfamiliar to you. Would you jump to the end?! Probably not. You might check the end along the way for a suffix- that would help with meaning. But that's not anywhere close to where beginning readers should be working. I threw out ALL of my word family activities.  None of my kinders did any work with them and they are all readers. 

And I have some news for those following my store on TPT. I am throwing a thank you to all of my followers by giving you 15% off all items in my store today through September 24, 2026. If you aren't following me over there yet, go give me a follow and get the discount! Share with friends and family. 

I'm pretty excited about my newest store item(s). I was driving home last week when I just got the idea for Blendo! It's a fun game to practice adding consonants onto CV blends to make CVC words. 

Blendo! comes in pdf printable as well as a Google Slides version. Check them out at my store!

Thank you for following and have a blessed year!

Heidi Lentz

Successive Blending!

 Now we're at the beginning of reading. Students know and have practiced the 5 vowel sounds a, e, i, o, and u. If they aren't perfect at it, that's ok. They will continue to practice as they are blending. 

Step 2

The first instruction day after practicing vowels I would introduce t. We would magic write it in the air. We would talk about how it looks- upper case and lower case. We would say the sound. We would think of words that start with the /t/ sound. I would do a letter sort of words that start with /t/. 

I would pass out white boards and we would practice writing top down a line and then give it a belt. Whatever the words are that you use to write your letters in your curriculum or what you like. As students are practicing their t's they would (as I am) say /t/ /t/ /t/. 

On day 2 of consonants (t in this case), I would remind them and review what letter is this? That's right! It's a t! What does t say? It says /t/. Today we are going to start reading. I would write a t on the board or use a magnetic letter and point to the letter and say /t/. They would copy. Then I  would review the vowels and their sounds. I would say "when I am reading I am just saying the sounds the letter makes. When I am writing, I am writing down the letter that says the sound I hear in the word!" Take your t letter (or write it) and point to it, then show your a letter (or write it) and say /a/. Remember to use the short sound! If students say the long /a/ sound, I just say, "you're right, a can say long /a/. But there is a rule that tells a when to say his long sound. Vowels can say 2 (or more) sounds. So how do I know which sound it's going to say? We follow the rules. If there is only 1 vowel in a word it USUALLY says it's short and lazy sound. Say /a/." so this letter is going to say /a/ now because there is only 1 vowel. 

Point to the t and have students say /t/, then point to the a and have them say /a/. Point faster. Then say, now we are going to blend them together and say /ta/. Move the two magnetic letters, or write them closer together like a normal word would have. Have students say it with you are your finger slides under the t and a. /ta/. 

I then line up the vowels in a column. I put the consonant (in this case- t) in front of the first vowel and we read that blend. Then I move the consonant down to the next vowel, e. We think about and remember what sound e makes. Then I say what sound did the t make? /t/ that's right, and now we have a new vowel so this doesn't say /ta/ it says /t/ point to the e and say /e/. That's /te/. Have students repeat with you. 

Then slide the t down one to the i. I say, "t says /t/ and i says /i/. /t/ /i/. Then i say /ti/. Every time I am saying a sound by itself I'll tap under the letter. When I am saying or blending the two sounds together I slide my finder under the sounds. Continue in this way, going through all 5 vowels with the consonant t in front. 

At the end of our lesson, because I always have some students who catch on quick, I will bounce my finger around on the different CV blends. Or move the magnet t around having them say each blend a bit faster. Since this is the first time blending, I would start each new blend with individual sounds and then slide and blend. 

That is how I teach successive blending in the beginning. Students get faster and faster. Soon, most won't even need to do the individual sounds before just blending them together. Whole class I always do each sound first because you will also have those students who do need that initial help. And if students haven't mastered the ta, te, ti, to, tu (which I do NOT expect on the first day), that's ok. You're going to practice and play with it and point out those sounds over and over. Do not wait for mastery of one letter before moving on. 

Now you could introduce some fun games to start practicing blending. I have a lot of CV Blending games/centers in my tpt store, but you can easily play many games with a pencil and paper (they need practice writing anyway), magnetic letters, or even scrabble tiles. 

This is a Back to School Successive Blending Bump Game. I am working on  seasonal themed sets because this is such an easy and fun game that students love to play. 

Another resource that I really like is the Point, Read, and Write. 

I hope that you find this useful and get some ideas. If you have a question, let me know and I'd love to see if I can help. 

Wait... what is CV blends/blend ladders/successive blending?!

 Wait... What is CV blends/blend ladders/successive blending?!

It's a method of teaching reading that is phonetic, traditional, and Science of Reading supported. It just makes sense. When I taught Kindergarten for 5 years, this is the method that was used with the curriculum we used and it just works. No guessing, no stopping to think about what COULD the answer be?  I've seen it work so fast and so well with students who are ready to read as well as with students who are struggling- although it may take a little longer for those students. 

I've taught parents how to use this method to help at home as well. So, let's get into what it is and how I teach reading using it. First though we have to start at the beginning. 

When teaching Kindergarten (or any age child who is starting at the beginning) the first thing I do is start with the vowels. I know... craziness. Listen though, it just makes sense. What is in EVERY syllable? What does every word have at least one of? What is often the harder sounds to learn- because they have 2+ sounds? Vowels! 

So let's spend the MOST time on what we are going to see and use the most. I start with Ii and we talk about how it looks on a line, we trace it with our magic fingers, we make the sound, we look at pictures and decide if they start with i. We practice writing the lower and upper case letter Ii. On the second day, we review all of that with the letter Ii, and then say short CVC words like pig, lip, etc. and decide if they have the /i/ sound. We sort pictures together, and notice words with the i sound. We continue to practice writing while we are talking about how to make that letter. 

If most students have the Ii pretty well, not perfect, then you COULD move on to the next vowel Ee on day three. If not, I would spend one more day talking, writing, and making /i/ sounds. Go through all the vowels in this way spending 2-3 days on them. Be VERY careful enunciating and having them say correctly the vowel  sounds (especially the i/e). 

I introduce the vowels in this order- i, e, u, o, a. 

After I have gone over all the vowel sounds we'll spend another day or two just playing with and listening for the correct vowel sound in words with one short vowel sound, so CVC words. If it would be beneficial for you to have some game or activities for practicing this, let me know and I can suggest some things. I LOVE word sorts personally and we did them several times a week in our composition books. I do have a Free Vowel Cut and paste activity on my TPT store that would be perfect, as well as a Point, Read, and Write activity, and the CV Blend Bump Games has a bonus set of Vowel Bump Game Boards in that. 

Step 1 in blending words together is knowing those vowels so well. I also love and used in my classroom twice a day. Yes, twice a day. We learned and sang The Better Alphabet Song by Katie Garner. She does a version with Jack Hartmann that my class loves. I always just had it queued up to when the music starts. We sang this song as I flipped through the letter cards (yes, I did use the Secret Stories in my classroom and LOVE it). Then we would listen and sing as we cleaned up our centers and came back to the carpet. It was a signal to begin cleaning up, but it was also a timer as my students had to be cleaned up and back sitting on the carpet by the time the song was over. 

I'll be back tomorrow with a post on the next Step I use when teaching littles to read.