![\"Table](\"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-23-at-14.13.59.png\")
<\/a>Phonics<\/h3>\n
The next stage of the blending\/reading jigsaw is when graphemes (letter shapes) are added. Students who can identify syllables and have good phonological awareness and who can also manipulate each of the 44 English phonemes are ready to link those sounds to graphemes in a cumulative and systematic order. We call this part of the reading journey \u2018phonics<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n So, back to our initial question about blending and there are a few answers.<\/p>\n It is important to acknowledge that dyslexic learners often have a deficit in processing speech sounds. This results in them finding it hard to process the individual sounds within words. This deficit and the extra effort required to process phonemes allows for only a limited capacity in working memory for phonemes to be manipulated and linked together. This usually presents itself as a student who laboriously sounds out phonemes but still struggles to link those sounds together to form a word.<\/p>\n There are also many \u2018instructional casualties\u2019 who also fail to blend. These learners often present similarly to those mentioned above but, with observation, it becomes clear that the reasons for their inability to blend is as a result of poor grapheme to phoneme correspondence based on poor knowledge. When I use the term \u2018instructional casualty\u2019 I infer that these learners have simply not been taught the letter sounds that are required to blend and decode words. Many of this group will learn to decode, blend sounds and read very quickly once they are taught systematic and cumulative phonics and can recall the sounds of graphemes and morphemes automatically.<\/p>\n Following on from this, there is another group of learners who learn to manipulate phonemes but who struggle to remember and recall the relationship between the shape of a letter (grapheme) and its phonemic (sound) representation. This group again will struggle to blend because they spend much of their capacity in working memory on recalling the phonemes and don\u2019t have enough space left for blending those sounds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One example of an activity that can help to develop phonemic awareness is that of sound boxes, or Elkonin<\/a> boxes.\u00a0 <\/span>Boxes are drawn to represent the number of phonemes within a given word presented pictorially or orally.\u00a0 <\/span>Students then identify individual sounds by tapping or placing a counter in each box to represent each phoneme. This activity allows an emergent reader to manipulate and consolidate his or her awareness of the 44 phonemes.\u00a0 <\/span>Once this awareness and manipulation has become automatic, a student is ready to link these sounds to the graphemes we use to represent them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Traditional phonic cards, card games and sound packs may be used to help students remember graphemes.\u00a0 <\/span>For students who struggle to remember them, key words and visual memory strategies may be useful.\u00a0 <\/span>For example, \u2018q\u2019 might be associated to the word queen and a large drawing of the grapheme might be decorated with a face and a crown.\u00a0 <\/span>The addition of a \u2018u\u2019 as an umbrella walking stick that the old queen must use in words can be a very helpful semantic memory strategy for some students.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n TAP Library novels work hand in hand with the direct instruction of systematic and cumulative phonics.\u00a0 The\u00a0Systematic phonic progression<\/a> <\/span>embedded in each level allows for students to practise decoding only with those graphemes and phonemes that have already been systematically taught and remembered.\u00a0 <\/span>This automaticity works to reduce load in working memory and encourages emergent readers to blend, decode and read words independently.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the third in a series of posts entitled \u201cCornerstone Concepts in Literacy\u201d.\u00a0 The previous posts were about\u00a0closed syllables and the meaning of symbols like CVC<\/a>\u00a0and open syllables and their importance for emergent or beginner readers<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is Blending? When we talk about blending we are talking about the way learners sound out phonemes and blend…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,224],"tags":[713,174,228,715,645,714],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.focusontap.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why do Readers Struggle with Blending?<\/h2>\n
What can be Done to Help students Who Struggle to Blend and Decode?<\/h2>\n
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How can TAP novels Help?<\/h2>\n