DAX Foundation

History

The blending hump

In a homeschool parents’ group this week, someone asked for the biggest achievement of the year so far. Two of the first three answers were the same thing in different words: getting over the blending hump, and a daughter who now reads with confidence. Blending had come up in another group a few days earlier. When parents keep naming one moment as the win, it is worth saying plainly what that moment is.

What the hump is

A child at the hump knows the sounds. Show them s, u and n and each one comes out right. Then the word comes out wrong: s-u-n becomes some other word that starts with s. The sounds stay separate, like beads that will not string. More flashcards rarely shift it, because the child already has every card. What is missing is the joining, and the frustration arrives fast. In our blending sample, the learner covers the page after two misses in a row.

Three moves from the samples

These come from the free samples on this site. The families are made up, written from parents’ descriptions, and each is a way, never the way.

  1. Model the joining, slowly, then faster. Say the sounds stretched out, then a little quicker, then quicker again, until the word pops out. Then the child tries the same word. The point is to hear sounds turn into a word, not to be told the word. (Blending sounds with dinosaurs)
  2. Use words the child already wants to say. The dinosaur sample starts from three-sound names like rex and builds to Velociraptor, because a child who loves the names has a reason to push the sounds together. It steps up after three right in a row and back after one miss, so the work stays at the edge of what the child can do.
  3. Run it backwards. Pulling a spoken word apart, one counter for each sound, then writing one letter per counter, is the same skill in reverse, and some children hear the joins more easily this way round. (Spelling by sound with counters)

Once a child is over the hump, the next wall is often the step from decodable books to real ones. Take turns is the sample for that one.

Stop on a win, and know when to get help

Sessions stay short and end on a word that came out right. If the sounds still will not join after several sessions of short, patient practice with a topic the child loves, the sample’s advice is to describe exactly that to a professional: each sound is right, the word is not, and it has lasted across sessions. You do not need a label first, and going earlier means more options.

What was the first word your child blended on their own?

Sources

← All writing