Blending Sounds 1

Phonics Words for Beginners

Easily teach students to read their first words with phonics!

What is Blending Sounds 1? 

Blending Sounds™ 1 is a fun, effective and scientifically based teaching tool which helps beginning and struggling readers to use letter-sound knowledge to read words by blending (joining) speech sounds together.

Blending Sounds™ 1 uses a patent pending, self-adjusting, multisensory teaching method to help students develop phonemic awareness and to use letter-sound knowledge to decode and recognise simple words. The teaching system automatically identifies what a child knows, what the child does not know, and which words the student confuses. The app includes a large library of CVC, CCVC and CVCC words and is fully customisable, making it easy to set up custom activities to teach students to read specific word types (such as words ending in -at, or words beginning with st-). 

Why is the ability to blend (join) speech sounds when reading so important?

Skilled readers are good at understanding that words are made up of speech sounds (a skill called phonemic awareness) and they are also good at understanding how these speech sounds are represented by letters. This knowledge helps children to ‘decode’ unfamiliar words by blending (joining) the speech sounds to recognise the word. Difficulties with these skills are a hallmark of the struggling reader. Furthermore, teaching methods that begin by teaching students letter-sound relationships (called ‘synthetic phonics’ methods) have been shown through research to be more effective than other approaches in teaching reading, regardless of whether students do or do not have reading difficulties. The evidence from the past several decades of reading research is clear: using letter-sound knowledge to decode unfamiliar words is crucial in learning to read, since it helps students to teach themselves new words.

How does Blending Sounds 1 help?

Blending Sounds™ 1 uses a patent pending, self-adjusting, multisensory teaching method to help teach beginning and struggling readers to use letter-sound knowledge to decode and recognise simple words with direct letter-sound patterns, such as "cat, stop" and "lost". The teaching system automatically identifies what a child knows, what the child does not know, and which words the child confuses. The app includes a large library of CVC, CCVC and CVCC words and is fully customisable, making it easy to set up custom activities to teach students to read specific word types (such as words ending in -at, or words beginning with st-). 

Who should use Blending Sounds 1?

Blending Sounds™ 1 is ideal for helping beginning readers, students with reading difficulties and students learning English as a second language. It is a perfect complement to any phonics program and is fully customisable. We are confident it will quickly become a favourite tool for teachers, parents, reading difficulty specialists and anybody else with an interest in the teaching of reading and spelling! 

Summary of Features

• Created by a speech-language pathologist with extensive experience in literacy development

• Scientifically-based

• Easy to use

• Fun, intuitive and powerful teaching tool

• Perfect for children of all ages learning to read English, including students with learning difficulties and students of English as a second language (ESL)

• Patent-pending, adjustable memory-aid system helps students remember letter-sound patterns

• Create and save custom activities to complement any synthetic phonics approach

How to get Blending Sounds 1

Blending Sounds™ 1 is available as an iPad app. To view it in the app store or to buy and download it, click the button below: 

To view our App Privacy Policy click HERE