Blending is the ability to smoothly and fluidly combine individual sounds together to make words. For example smooth blending is sounding out the word “mask” as /mmaassk/ instead of chopping it up or segmenting /m/…/a/…/s/…/k/. Blending is smoothly hooking the sounds together and sounding the word out.
In order to read proficiently, students must learn to blend individual sounds smoothly together to create words without making them sound choppy or pausing between each sound. The ability to seamlessly combine individual sounds together into the fluid word is not only vital for developing correct phonologic processing, it is also critical for developing eventual fluency. Smooth blending is one of the subskills vital to developing correct phonologic processing, the foundation for proficient reading.
