Subjects/Foundational Literacy/Consonant Blends: Two Sounds Together
Foundational LiteracyBlending & Decoding

Consonant Blends: Two Sounds Together

Learn to read words with two consonant sounds at the beginning.

10 min

🎯 What You'll Learn

You will learn to read words that start with two consonant sounds together, called consonant blends.

🌟 Let's Start

You can read words like cat and dog. But what about words like stop or clap? These words start with TWO consonant sounds pushed together. In stop, you hear /s/ and /t/ together at the start. These are called blends.

📚 New Concept

A consonant blend is when two consonant sounds are pushed together. You can hear both sounds.

Common beginning blends:

  • bl: black, blue, bless, block
  • cl: clap, clip, club, class
  • cr: crab, cross, crop, crib
  • dr: drum, drop, dress, drink
  • fl: flag, flip, flat, frog
  • fr: frog, from, free, fresh
  • gr: grab, grin, green, grass
  • pl: plan, plug, plum, play
  • sl: slip, slim, slap, slug
  • st: stop, step, still, stick
  • tr: trip, trap, tree, truck

How to read a blend: Do NOT separate the sounds too much. Push them together smoothly: /s/-/t/-/o/-/p/ → stop.

🎮 Let's Practice

  1. Read: stop. What blend does it start with?
  2. Read: clap. What blend does it start with?
  3. Read this sentence: "I grab the drum and tap it."
Click to see answers
  1. stop starts with the blend st.
  2. clap starts with the blend cl.
  3. "I grab the drum and tap it." — grab starts with gr, drum starts with dr. Great reading!

💡 Remember

Consonant blends are two consonant sounds pushed together at the start of a word. You can hear both sounds: st in stop, cl in clap, dr in drum. Blend them smoothly!