What Is Successive Blending? Intervention for Students Who Need Support with continuous blending

Do you find that some of your beginning readers are having difficulty connecting or blending the three sounds in CVC words? Have you ever taught a child who sounds out the letters of a word and says a different word? For some students, blending the three sounds in a CVC word is too much of a cognitive load and taxes their short-term memory. If this is the case, these students might benefit from a strategy called successive blending.

What is Successive Blending?

Successive blending is a phonics intervention strategy for students who are having difficulty with continuous blending. It is a process where students blend the first two sounds before being introduced to a third sound in a CVC word. Successive blending is a scaffold for students who cannot continuously blend more than two sounds.

There’s a lot to unpack in that definition, so let’s get started. 

Successive Blending is an Intervention Strategy

The fact that this blending technique is an intervention strategy means that most students who are learning to read will not need to use it. Most students will be successful with continuous blending.

For students who are not successful with continuous blending, successive blending could be a strategy that bridges the gap and helps them connect the sounds together. This intervention strategy lessens the cognitive load on working memory and helps students make connections between the letters and sounds in a CVC word.

How Do I Teach Successive Blending?

With successive blending, students say or segment the first two sounds in a word and then immediately blend those first two sounds together. Then they say the third sound and blend that sound with the first two sounds. It helps students concentrate on the process of blending.

Successive Blending Example: How to Blend the Word Sad

Here is a teaching sequence for how to help children successively blend the word SAD:

1. Look at the first letter and say /s/
2. Look at the second letter and say /a/
3. Blend the first sound and second sound /ssaa/
4. Repeat /ssaa/.
5. Look at the last letter and say the ending sound /d/
6. Blend /ssaa/ and /d/ together.

Successive blending can be incorporated within your existing small group phonics instruction and word work activities. It is student-based, meaning it is a strategy you can use with some students who need it while other students use continuous blending techniques.

When Should Students Be Taught Successive Blending?

Students should be taught successive blending if they have difficulty continuously blending CVC words. If students are having difficulty hanging on to the three sounds in their heads and are not able to blend the three sounds together, they could benefit from this intervention strategy. 

Successive blending places less demand on working memory or short term memory compared to continuous blending. Some students will need to spend more time working with successive blending than others. The goal is for students to continuously blend CVC words and then move on to blending words with four sounds, etc.

What is Continuous Blending vs. Successive Blending?

Continuous blending is sounding out words without stopping or pausing between sounds. Honestly, I always called this blending and compared it to segmenting, where the sounds are said in isolation. Now that we have more strategies and more labels for these strategies with the Science of Reading research, we now need to differentiate between continuous blending and successive blending.

To learn how to continuously blend words, students start by continuously blending two sounds, like /aamm/, then move on to three sounds, like /ssaad/, then four sounds, etc. By the time students are continuously blending four sounds, they have likely internalized the process and need to apply that process to new sound and spelling patterns. 

For students who cannot move from continuously blending two sounds to three sounds, successive blending might be a good intervention strategy.

One thing I want to make clear is – learning to read is a process. Blending is a process. When you work with students, focus on helping them learn the process of blending. While the individual sounds are important, the focus is on the process.

How do I know students are having difficulty with continuous blending?

Several signals will tell you if students are having difficulty with continuous blending.

• Students might say all of the sounds of a word but then read a completely different word. For instance, students might blend /taag/ and then say tap, got or bag. Likewise, students might produce a word with additional sounds our sounds out of sequence. This suggests that students are not able to remember all three sounds and are guessing a word with similar sounds.
• Students might have gaps in their continuous blending, especially between the second and third sounds. This tells you that they need to “let go” of what they are holding in their head to figure out the last sound.
• Students might also add a schwa sound to letters. Successive blending will help students connect the sounds to eliminate the schwa sound.

Do I need special blending cards for successive blending?

Successive blending is a teaching strategy, not a physical tool. Any set of blending cards, word cards, phonics task cards, or letter cards can be used to practice this blending strategy. The idea with successive blending is to reduce the cognitive load of short term memory so that students focus on only two sounds at a time.

To do this with a regular blending card or word card, use a blank index card to cover up the third sound so that students only see the first two letters in the word.

While some task cards may have blending lines that assist students by showing them how to move their finger under the letters, beginning readers should also practice words without the lines.

What Do Students Need to Know to Be Able to Use Successive Blending?

To use the this blending strategy students should know most of their letter sounds, and they must know the letter sounds in the words you are using to teach this strategy.

What Words Can I use for Successive Blending?

Choose the same words students are having difficulty with using continuous blending. Start with words that begin with continuous sounds like s, m, or r, then move onto words that start with stop sounds like p, t, d. Be sure that students practice successive blending with different words so that they can practice applying the skill with different letter sounds and so that you can see where they might be making mistakes.

What do I do once Students have Mastered Successive Blending?

You likely determined that students needed to learn the successive blending strategy because they could not blend CVC words. Once students have mastered this strategy, return to continuously blending CVC words. You may need to go back and forth between successive blending and continuous blending to solidify the process. Once students are continuously blending CVC words, move on to either digraphs or blends.

Remember – Blending is a Reading Process 

When you teach students to blend words, you are teaching them a process of how to do something. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when teaching students a process:

• Reduce the cognitive load. Start with two sounds. When students have mastered two sounds, move on to three sounds. If students cannot blend three sounds, try successive bending. 
• Use consonants with continuous sounds instead of stop sounds. Then, move on to words with stop sounds. 
• Practice this skill using phonemic awareness activities.

At some point, students will move beyond blending words by their individual sounds. At the same time, students will revert to the process of blending when presented with unfamiliar words until they have learned to read words by syllables. Even then, they will revisit what they know if presented with unfamiliar syllables. Learning to read is a process and a journey. It’s not a straight line.

The Confusion Between Successive Blending and Open Syllables

When the first two letters in successive blending are presented to students without the third letter, those two letters look a lot like an open syllable. Students who need an intervention like successive blending will not yet be reading words with open syllables. They should not have the concept of open syllables in their knowledge base yet. However, students may have been exposed to open syllables in their general education classroom. You may need to address this with students who present you with a long vowel sound when blending the first and second sounds in a CVC word.

Also, when students do start learning open syllables, they may be confused as to why the vowel sound is now a long vowel. Teaching open syllables alongside closed syllables will help students see the differences between them.

Whether students are using successive blending or have progressed to continuous blending, the goal remains the same: fostering confident and proficient readers. Recognizing the cues when a student struggles with continuous blending and knowing when to introduce successive blending as an intervention can make all the difference in your early reading phonics instruction. It might not always be a straight path, but with patience, understanding, and effective teaching strategies, every child, even struggling readers, can learn to read.