5 Tips For Teaching Ending Blends +2 Free Games &Puzzles

What is an ending blend?

Struggling with ending blends? No worries – they’re easier to recognize than you might think! Ending consonant blends consist of two adjoining consonants at the end of a word and each make their own sound. Look for words like ‘desk’ <sk> or past <st>.

A helpful hint: If two letters create ONE sound, then it’s an “ending digraph” — not a blend! An example of a digraph at the end of a word is <ck> as in a word like in ‘sack’ (where <ck> just makes the sound /k/). Make sure to teach digraphs before you teach blends. If you would like to read about blends vs. digraphs you can check that out in the blog.

Examples of Final Consonant blends

• sk – as in desk
• mp – as in damp
• nd – as in send
• ld – as in cold * but this a closed syllable exception
• lf – as in gulf
• nt – as in bent
• st – as in past
• rd – as in bird * r blends should be taught with r-controlled vowels
• rk – as in bark * r blends should be taught with r-controlled vowels
• lt – as in felt
• nk* – as in rink * this should be taught with glued sounds
• lp- as in help

How to teach blends

Know the difference between blends & digraphs

Students need to be able to tell the difference between a consonant blend and a consonant digraph. Once young learners know the difference between a blend word and a consonant cluster or blend it is important to choose which to teach first ending blends or beginning blends.

Teach Ending Blends Words First

Some teachers teach beginning blends before ending blends however I have found that most of my struggling readers have a much easier time reading closed-syllable words with 2 consonant letters at the end of words.

Many kids in first grade have already read a base word with the suffix -s to make plural words so reading final blends is easier than reading a beginning blend. It is always good to build on phonics skills students already have when teaching new skills.

Introduce Ending Blends in Kindergarten

Hear a blend before reading a blend

As a teacher, I would not ask most kindergarten kids to read ending blend words in kindergarten. But I would play fun phonemic awareness activities and games with young learners.

These games are not played with written words or letters. They are played with just sounds. The ability to blend sounds is a precursor to fluent reading. If students can hear the difference between a CVC word and a CVCC word will have a much easier time learning to read and spell ending blends in the future.

An example of this game would be to give kids a word like ‘will’ and ask them to add the sound /t/ to the end of the word to get the word wilt. Or give them an example word like “Ben” and then add the sound /t/ to make the word ‘bent’ and then switch the sound to /d/ and make the word “bend”. Most kids have fun playing with ending blends in this way!

Use the free ending blends chart of word lists at the end of the blog post to play these listening games.

Activities for structuring a lesson with ending blends

Listening for final consonant blends is a wonderful beginning for any structured literacy lesson involving ending blends. You can do this just by listening to words or using my free race track phonemic awareness materials and games for added learning fun in your classroom!

Phonemic Awareness with ending blends

After having fun with phonemic awareness, it is time to work with word families.  Show the word “Ben”. Ask what the beginning sound is and what the word family is. When they identify the <en> as the word family, add the sound /d/ and ask what the new word family is. (end). So ask now what is the new word <bend>.

Adding to Word Families for consonant blends

After modeling with consonant blends, lead students in guided reading practice with more words with the ending blends ten–> tent, hum–>, hump.

If students are progressing well with adding the final consonant and final blends it is fine to combine ending blends practice words but if they are struggling then make sure to break out each blend for separate practice in isolation. For example, all the T blends, or L Blends.

Phonics Development through Orthographic Mapping

Orthographic mapping is a powerful and fun way for students to develop proficiency with ending blend words.

• Students look at the picture and say the word.
• Then they segment each separate sound that they hear in the word.
• Then they map the word and print the corresponding letters in the Elokin boxes.
• Then they rewrite the word as they say the letters as they are spelling them.

Teaching Orthographic mapping connects sounds and letters for students and this helps them become sight words for students. Any word that kids can read automatically is a sight word for them, not just high-frequency words.

Have kids use the fun free blend orthographic mapping templates that are available for download at the end of this blog post. They can be covered in plastic and used with a dry-erase marker in centers in the classroom.

Play An Ending Blend Words Board Game

If students are still struggling reading with tricky ending blends then let them practice those consonant clusters by using my game board resources. Print the page with the ending blend game boards and use them for fun practice during center time. They can practice their phonics skills by both reading and spelling while rolling the dice and having lots of learning fun.

Match Pictures and Sentences

After teaching kids words in isolation have students begin to work on some fun reading comprehension by matching some ending blends sentences with the correct picture. To develop fluency with the sentence reading have the students scoop the phrases on the sentence strip puzzles this helps kids with reading comprehension.

Teach Using Decodable Texts

Following ending blends teaching with words and sentences. Make sure to follow up on that great learning with decodable texts. Even if there is limited time in your reading groups decodable a consonant blend mini-book is a great option for phonics practice. I use consonant blend mini-books to practice spelling and writing as well as reading.

There are more options for decodable blend passages as well in my store because aside from game worksheets decodable passages are the best resources for teaching phonics concepts.

Teaching blends can be challenging especially if you have students that struggle with phonics and sounds. Struggling and beginning readers need lots of systematic blend practice. Games resources and decodable stories make phonics and phonemic awareness so much easier to teach. So download the free resources at the end of this post and let me know if they are helpful for your students or if you have other ideas or resources to help developing readers master blend words.

Download Games and Orthographic mapping templates below