Consonant Blends and Digraphs Study Notes

1st Grade English Language Arts: Consonant Blends and Digraphs 📚

Consonant blends and digraphs are important building blocks for reading and spelling. They help us understand how letters work together to make sounds.

What are Consonant Blends? 🤔

A consonant blend is when two or three consonants are together in a word, and you can hear each individual sound. The sounds are blended, or mixed, together.

Common Blends:

• L Blends: bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl (e.g., blue, cloud, flag, glue, play, sleep)
• R Blends: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr (e.g., brown, crab, dress, frog, green, pray, tree)
• S Blends: sc, sk, sm, sn, sp, st, sw (e.g., scat, sky, small, snap, spot, star, swim)
• 3-Letter Blends: str, scr, spl, spr, thr (e.g., street, screw, splash, spray, three)

What are Consonant Digraphs? 🗣️

A consonant digraph is when two consonants come together to make one new sound. You cannot hear the individual sounds of the letters; they combine to form a brand-new sound.

Common Digraphs:

• ch: chair, chip, wach
• sh: ship, fish, wash
• th: thin, this, bath
• wh: what, when, wheel
• ck: duck, back, luck

Blends vs. Digraphs: What's the Difference? 🧐

The key difference is whether you can hear each letter's sound. In blends, you hear all sounds. In digraphs, the two letters make a single, new sound.

Example Comparison:

Blend	Word	Sounds Heard
bl	block	/b/ /l/
cl	clown	/k/ /l/

Digraph	Word	New Sound
ch	chin	/ch/
sh	shop	/sh/

Practice Activities ✍️

Activity Idea: Cut out letters to form blends and digraphs. Say the sounds aloud. Then, find words in books that contain these blends and digraphs.

📌 Key Takeaway: Blends keep their individual sounds, while digraphs create a new sound together.

💡 Pro Tip: Practice identifying the initial and final blends and digraphs in words to improve decoding skills.