Blend Three Letters in Short-a Words

Supplied materials

• Practice card: m /m/, a short /ă/ as in apple, p /p/, t /t/, s /s/. Words: map, mat, sat. Original practice sentences: “Sam sat. A map is on a mat.” An adult reads Sam, A, is, on, and a if needed.
• Paper and pencil; spoken responses are welcome.

Learn the idea

For these words, look at every letter from left to right. An adult models the short-a sound in map, rather than the letter name A. Say /m/, /ă/, /p/ and bring them together into map. Keep stop sounds such as /p/ brief; an added “uh” can make blending harder.

Map and mat share their first two letters, but their last letters differ. Reading the whole word means checking the ending instead of guessing from the first letter. These are a few English sound-spelling patterns, not a rule for every word. An adult may read the other sentence words so the learner can focus on this small practice set.

1. Ask an adult to model each card sound and blend map.
2. Point to the three letters in mat and blend the whole word.
3. Compare map and mat; say which final letter changed.
4. Read sat in the practice sentence, then have an adult reread the sentence for meaning.

Check your reasoning

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Take it further

Replace final t in mat with p. Model: “The first two sounds stay /m/ and short /ă/; the final sound becomes /p/, making map.” Then have the adult read “A map is on a mat” and explain that the two different words name different things.

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