An expert panel names this exact problem: a child can say each sound but has trouble getting to the word. Its advice is to teach blending directly, from left to right, starting with short familiar words, and to help the child join the sounds smoothly with no stop between them.
The guide describes blending as reading a word from left to right by joining each letter or letter group into one sound.
In the source’s own words“Blending is the process of reading a word systematically from left to right by combining each successive letter or combination of letters into one sound.”
The guide says to begin with simple, familiar three-sound words, show the child how to blend, and give feedback as the child tries it alone.
In the source’s own words“Start with simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words that are familiar to students. Demonstrate how to blend, and provide feedback as students begin to apply it independently.”
The guide names this exact problem: a child can say the sound of each letter but has trouble getting to the word.
In the source’s own words“Students are able to identify the sounds of the letters in a word, but they have trouble arriving at the correct pronunciation for the word.”
For that problem, the panel's advice is to teach the child to blend the sounds smoothly, with no stop between them.
In the source’s own words“Students should be taught to sound out or blend sounds smoothly, without stopping between sounds”
The panel advises listening for an extra "uh" added after quick sounds, and helping the child drop it.
In the source’s own words“Teachers should listen for students who add a schwa sound after stop sounds (e.g., /b/ becomes buh) and should work with those students to reduce or eliminate the schwa sound.”
The guide's glossary says words that begin with a quick stop sound may be harder to sound out than words that begin with a sound that can be held.
In the source’s own words“Words beginning with stop sounds may be more difficult for students to sound out than words beginning with continuous sounds.”
The guide describes one way to blend, called chunking: add each new sound to the sounds already joined before moving to the next one.
In the source’s own words“Chunking is a type of blending in which students read the sounds from left to right but add each sound to the previous sound before going on to the next sound in the word.”
The National Reading Panel concluded that teaching children to blend sounds and to break words into sounds helped their reading more than training in several sound skills at once.
In the source’s own words“From these findings, the Panel concludes that blend-and-segment training benefited children’s reading more than multiple skills training did.”
We read each of these ourselves on October 9, 2026. Follow the links to read them too.
“Knows the sounds, but cannot put them together into a word”
From Sounds to Words is a full 10-day plan, with a short video that shows you every step. The goal: on day 10 your child reads words they have never seen before. It is the goal, not a promise.
