br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, sr, scr, shr, tr, thr, wr

Does our crocodile look friendly to you?  

Letter r is a strong sound; it takes young children a long time to learn to twist their tongue muscles into the shapes needed to produce it. 

In blends, letters keep their own sounds and blend together. The full r-blend family is large: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, sr, scr, shr, tr, thr, wr.

Today's blog will target br, cr, dr words.

Fr, gr, pr, sr, scr, tr, and wr will be covered in the next two blogs. You might need my search box - top left corner.

Being able to see r-blends within words while reading will take many repetitions.  This is because letter r is seen working on its own in words like rabbit, arm, and our; not just in r-blends, like brag and trip.

As you are reading stories together, ask your child to watch for specific r-blends in order to help your child isolate one small group from the vast pool of letters he is seeing on the page.

Let's listen to letter r at the start of:

rat      ram       raccoon      reindeer       rhinoceros   rooster


Let's say the b sound before the r sound:
brat       brand           brave       brace           bread

brag      bramble       brain        bracelet       breath same vowel sound as in bread

Let's say the c sound before the r sound:
crab     crack       crazy       crawl      creature    crocodile

cram    crash       crayon     creep     cricket       croak

Let's say the d sound before r:
drat      dream      drop     drill      drift

drab     dress       drip      drink    drive

Note: shr and thr are not blends. English has 6 digraphs: sh, th, wh, ch, ph, gh. In digraphs, the letters drop their standard sound and melt into a special sound. Sh always sounds like she, shoe, ship. So shr is shrimp, shred, shriek.  Th always sounds like the and them, so thr is three, thread, throne. Look for the shr, thr lesson; use my search box - top left corner. 

I use eBay as my website. Search: Instant Reading Help 1st Grade, 2nd Grade (Giraffe cover). Also: Instant Reading Help kindergarten (panda cover) and Instant Reading Help Vowels (rabbit hopping through the woods cover). Instant Reading Help 3rd Grade, 4th Grade.

All books include my contact info; email or call for help.

Have a great day reading with your child, Mary Maisner