- Oh, hi, friend.

My name is Anna.

I was actually just texting a friend of mine to see if she wanted to meet up with me in a little bit at the mall.

Who are some of your friends and what are the things you would like to do with them?

Aw, that's really cool.

Yeah, I like doing things outdoors too, like riding bikes and playing games.

Well, actually, the word friend has our focus in that word.

Let me write the word here.

So in the word friend, we have these two letters.

Those are called blends.

Can you say blends?

Good.

So blends are when two or three consonants are put together, but they keep their individual sounds.

So we're gonna learn about them today.

Does that sound like fun?

Great, all right.

Before we do that though, let's get our ears ready to work with some sounds like we always do.

Let's blend some onset and rhyme.

I'm gonna give you the first part of the word, then I'll give you the second part of the word.

So onset rhyme, and then you're gonna blend it together to tell me what the whole word is, okay?

So listen to this example.

If I said bl and then ak.

Bl, ak.

Put it together, black.

All right, how about this?

Fl, at.

Flat.

Pl, ate.

Plate.

Br, ick.

Brick.

Sl, ept.

Slept, okay.

Blends are two or three consonants put together, but they keep their individual sounds.

So first, let's figure out which letters are the consonants.

Sometimes it's easier to think of the vowels first.

Which letters represent vowels?

That's right.

A,E,I,O, and U.

So the remaining letters of the alphabet would be our consonants.

So my favorite blend is actually this one.

Three letters that say scr, like scratch or screech, or like in my last name, scratching.

So that's my favorite blend.

Today we're gonna focus on two letter blends, okay?

We're gonna focus first on S blends, and then we're gonna focus on some R blends, okay?

So if I have my S, what sound does I represent?

Right.

And if I pair it with where this letter, what sounds does it make, does that letter represent?

Right, "l." So we have ss, il, let's blend it together.

Sl, right.

Like in the word, slip, right.

Don't slip on the ice.

Okay.

How about, we'll keep that sl, 'cause we're working on our S blend.

And then we have, this letter.

What sound?

That's right, T. So s, t. If we blend it, it becomes st. Like in the word stop.

Okay, how about this last one?

What's this letter?

Think of the sound it represents.

Right, p. So we have s, p. And we blend it, sp Like in the word spot, okay?

Did you notice something really cool about all of these S blends?

We had SL, we had ST and now we have SP.

You notice how for the most part, our S is gonna stay in that first space when we're writing our blends.

So sl, st, sp, okay?

Let's do some blends now with the letter R. Okay.

So I'm gonna have my R right here.

Now, what sound does R represent?

That's right, er.

Okay, so now if I were to put this.

We have b, r, br.

Like brag, right?

He likes to brag about how good he is at playing sports.

Okay?

Brag.

What if we do this instead?

So what sound?

That's right, G represents that g sound.

So we have g, er, gr.

Okay, and that's kinda like the word grip, right?

Make sure you grip your pencil correctly when you are writing, grip.

Okay, let's try one more.

How about, so what's the sound?

Okay, we have f, r, let's blend it.

Fr.

Like the word free.

Now, what did you notice about these blends?

Okay, so we had br.

We had gr.

And we have fr.

This time you noticed that R was within that second stop, right?

Because we're not gonna see blends where R is going to be the first letter, okay?

You're not gonna see that.

R will not be in that first position, okay?

Do you think you're ready to try to write some words with these blends?

Okay, go get a piece of paper and a pencil and meet me back here, go.

[upbeat music] Come here, come close.

So there's actually two R blends that can be a little bit tricky that I wanna teach you about.

Is that okay?

All right.

It's TR and DR.

So a lot of times when TR is used at the beginning of the word, it actually sounds like like chr.

Like train.

But it's spelled with a TR, just like the word trick.

So sometimes when you hear chr, it's actually gonna be spelled TR, so pay attention to that.

The other one is DR.

So a lot of times it sounds like you're hearing jr, but you're not gonna see J and R next to each other.

That's not a blend.

So when you hear J, it's usually going to be DR, like in the word dress or drink, okay?

Don't let those tricky R blends fool you.

Hopefully you have the material you need and it's not, it's okay.

You can still just follow along with us.

So what's gonna happen is I am giving you the rhyme or the ending part to a whole bunch of words.

You are responsible for coming up with the S or R blend that appears at the beginning of the word, okay?

So remember we're either gonna have S and a consonant or some sort of consonant with the R. Let's look at the first word, listen carefully.

The word is slop, so if we need to, let's stretch it.

Slop.

What do we hear at the beginning of the word?

What blend?

Slop.

Right.

So I hear, sl in slop.

All right, how about the next one?

The word is brick.

What blend do you hear in the word brick?

Brick.

Brick.

So are we gonna be using our S blend or our R blend?

That's right, it's an R blend, right?

So what letters do we need for brick?

That's right, we need BR for that br, brick.

Okay, how about the next word?

The next word is small.

Are we using S blend or R blend?

That's right, it's an S blend.

Okay, so how are we writing small?

Okay, so we know we're gonna start with that ss.

And then we need mm, our M for small.

All right, how about this word?

The word is tree.

Tree.

Is that an S blend or R blend?

That is an R blend.

Okay, so how are we gonna spell tree?

That's right, tr, ee.

Tree.

All right, last word.

How about the word frown?

Ooh, frown.

Is that an S blend or an R blend?

That's right, it's an R blend.

Okay, so how are we gonna make fr at the beginning of frown?

If you put fr you are correct, give your brain a kiss.

Thank you so much for working on your blends with me.

So today we focused on our S blends and our R blends.

As you're reading, see if you can find some words with either S or R blends in them.

Well, until next time, friends.

Bye.