Feature Test

Before and After Comparison

One of the most common frustrations I hear from kindergarten and early elementary teachers is this:

“They know their letters. They know their sounds. But they still cannot read words.”

If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. And more importantly, this is not a failure of effort or exposure. It is almost always a breakdown in how sounds are being taught and transferred into blending.

Research has been very clear on this point.

Linnea Ehri explains that “readers must form connections between the letters in written words and the sounds in spoken words. Without these connections, words cannot be read or remembered.”

If students cannot hold onto sounds long enough to connect them, reading will continue to feel impossible no matter how many letters they know.

Image With Hotspots

Sounds must come first

Before students can blend, decode, or read words, they must have a strong understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds that can be isolated, repeated, and remembered.

Sally Shaywitz refers to phonemic awareness as “the gateway skill,” noting that if children do not grasp that words are made up of sounds, reading will remain a struggle.

This is why sound work cannot be rushed or treated as a warm-up activity. It is the foundation everything else is built on.

When students struggle with sound retention, they need explicit modeling, consistent routines, and opportunities to hear and feel how sounds are made.

Zoomable Image

These tools help teachers slow down instruction, focus on articulation, and give students multiple ways to anchor each sound before moving to print.

The missing middle step: VC blending

One of the biggest instructional gaps I see is skipping directly from isolated sounds to CVC words.

For many students, that leap is simply too large.

VC blending provides the bridge.

Marilyn Adams explains that “blending phonemes into words must be taught explicitly and practiced extensively, especially with simple sound structures.” VC words allow students to practice blending with minimal cognitive load while learning how sounds stick together.

A strategy I use consistently during VC blending is physically showing the sounds moving together.

I model the vowel and consonant far apart at first:

/a/ ---------- /t/

Then, as we blend, I slowly push the letters closer together while stretching the sounds until they touch and become “at.”

This visual and physical movement helps students understand that blending is not guessing. It is sounds coming together.

Captioned Image Gallery