Blending

The learned sounds can be combined into sequences of sounds, for the construction of simple new sounds or words. This process is called 'blending.'

Blending begins with some simple consonant-consonant blends such as b-l to make bl-, c-h to make ch-. These blends are used as single units when decoding words. For example, crab becomes cr-a-b.

They can then begin to sound out unfamiliar letter sequences and 'blend' these separate sounds together into composite sounds and complete words. Once comfortable with the auditory and written representation of a word, meaning and contextt is so much easier to absorb and retain.

This strategy works well for 'regular' words, which constitute about 50% of all words. Irregular words must be learned by sight.