In this section you notice that we focus our worksheets primarily on two-letter blends, but there is a special section that concentrates on three letter blends. Our two-letter blends are the most commonly used words and normally serve as the starting point for this skill. You will also find a topic that directs attention to blending distinguishable sounds. We encourage you to explore all the different sections because they will help students gain experience with a wide range of sounds and broaden their vocabulary. Each interactive lesson allows you to print the PDF file to give you students a little bit of extra work to take home. Convenient answer keys allow students to make progress at their preferred paces. Please Note: The worksheet categories below will take you to an area with at least 15 worksheets to print in under each topic.
Blend Worksheet Categories
Click the buttons to be transported to all the worksheets for that topic.
3 Letter Blends
Examples: spray, spring, spread, sprout, sprint. Remember, as stated above, that we have an entire section devoted to this topic.
Bl- Blends
You will find just over 30 worksheets that work on the bl- word list. They will get the opportunity to sound out all of the words.
Br- Blends
This is one of our more popular lists. You would not imagine how many terms can sort into this category. Examples: brain, brave, breeze, branch, bride
Ch- Blends
Some of our favorite things in the world fit into this list. Examples: chalk, change, children, chat, chip
Dr- Blends
These particular word lists give students a bit of difficulty. It is most likely because it is filled with slightly higher level vocabulary. Examples: dream, dress, drink, drop, drum
Phoneme Blending
We look at how we can work on this skill by focusing on the sounds that we hear within each of the words. This helps us determine the make up and students can begin to create their own lists.
Pl- Blends
You will find that words that possess this tend to be more basic and easier for students to handle. Examples: plane, planet, plate, plug, plum
Sl- Blends
This makes a cool sound, so students tend to have more fun with this one. Examples: slam, slide, slime, slip, slice
Sn- Blends
I often refer to these terms as the slipper list. You will get what I mean when you start working with them. Examples: snack, snake, sneak, sneeze, snooze
Sp- Blends
These words tend to make a pop sound which can be exciting for students. Examples: spa, space, speech, spell, spin
St- Blends
These blends make a pretty memorable sound. You will find that students pick up on it quickly. Examples: stamp, stand, stay, stick, stop
Th- Blends
When I first begin teaching it was interesting to learn that students have serious difficulty making this sound. Examples: them, thin, thick, think, thumb
Tr-
You will complete all of these worksheets by sounding everything out. Do not be afraid to say things aloud. Examples: track, trade, trail, trash, trick
What are Consonant Blends?
A consonant is any letter that is not a vowel (a, e, i, o, u). There are many different words that share a combination of similar consonants and vowel. We call words that share a series of two or three common letter patterns a blend. When the same string of consonants are arranged together we call it a consonant blend. There are also vowel blends that have the same series of non-consonants.
We urge you to explain the concept of blending to your students so that they can take a logical approach to better understand these words. Our advice is to start very simple and build up to the larger word chunks. When students have success with the less complicated words, it will help them progress at a faster rate. Some students will have trouble with a particular sound because of their natural speech patterns.
How to Approach Teaching Blends
The most successful approach, like everything in education, is clear and consistent. It is a good habit to present a single new blend list each week until students begin to cruise through it. By about a third into the school year, you should be able to double that workload and they should have the same success rate. We would caution you able going faster than that. Twenty new words per week is kind of where you begin to push the needle for this age group.
These are the worksheets they should spend more time with. It will be different for all students. When you approach words that have consonant blends you can hear the sound of each letter in the blend itself. You will sometimes run into words that have the series of letters make one sound, these words are called digraphs.