Consonant Blends (bl, cr, st, tr)
Produce two-consonant blends at word-initial position without vowel insertion.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Watch for the inserted vowel and name it. Buh-lack is the characteristic error, and asking the child to say the two consonants closer together works better than asking them to say the word again. Contrast the blend with its parts — bl against b and l — so the child hears what is being asked. Ten minutes covers the sixteen with the contrast step on the ones that break.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentShow the card and wait 3 seconds for the student to read it.Log as correct
- Point to itPoint to the letter pattern that matters, or tap under each sound.Log as cued
- Sound it outSay the first sound together, then let the student blend the rest.Log as cued
- ModelRead it, tapping each sound; the student reads it after you.Log as cued
Adjust it
Use fewer cards and start with the patterns the student already reads, such as 'black' and 'blue'.
Read the words in a sentence, or spell them from dictation.
Matching IEP goal
Given decodable word cards, such as 'black' and 'blue', Student will read the target pattern accurately in 8 of 10 words across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than a visual cue.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Sixteen words with two-consonant blends at the start: black, blue, block and blanket for bl; crab, cry, crown and cricket for cr; star, stop, stick and stamp for st; tree, train, truck and tractor for tr. A blend is two sounds the child usually has separately, and the difficulty is producing them without a vowel appearing between them.
What to listen for
Listen for reduction as well as insertion. A child who says back for black has dropped the second consonant entirely, which is a different pattern from buh-lack and needs different work: reduction usually resolves by adding the missing sound slowly, insertion by speeding the two up. Watch tr specifically — tree and truck are often produced with a /ch/ quality, which is a normal feature of English rather than an error.
Carrying it home
Blend words are easy to notice on a walk: tree, truck, star, stop sign. Asking a child to say the word rather than correcting how they said it keeps the practice from turning into a correction routine.
What's in this activity
- black
- blue
- block
- blanket
- crab
- cry
- crown
- cricket
- star
- stop
- stick
- stamp
- tree
- train
- truck
- tractor
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- First and second, where blends are both a phonics and a speech target.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all sixteen words play with no login.
- My child says 'buh-lue' for 'blue'. What is that?
- Vowel insertion — the two consonants are being separated by a schwa. It usually resolves by cueing the child to run the two sounds together quickly rather than by more repetitions of the whole word.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.