Onsets & Rimes
Blend and segment onsets and rimes in single-syllable words; identify individual first, middle and last sounds in CVC words; substitute one sound to make a new word
What a learner can do afterwards
- Blend onset and rime to say a word (e.g. /k/ + 'at' makes 'cat')
- Identify the first, middle, or last sound in a CVC word
- Change one sound to make a new word (e.g. change /k/ in 'cat' to /b/ to make 'bat')
1 · Read
Say words aloud. Ask someone to read unfamiliar words with you. A syllable is a spoken beat. A one-beat word has one syllable. Its onset is the consonant sound or sounds before the vowel. The rime starts with the vowel sound and includes the sounds after it. Frog has /f/ and /r/ before its vowel. At has no onset. Words with the same rime have matching endings.
Leo splits vet into its onset /v/ and rime 'et'. Say those parts without a gap to blend vet. To split a word, find the consonant sound or sounds before the vowel. Keep the vowel and the sounds after it together as the rime. An onset and rime are two parts; each part may hold more than one sound.
Change one sound and keep the others. Log becomes fog when /l/ changes to /f/. Ten becomes tan when short e changes to short a. Rug becomes rub when /g/ changes to /b/. To find a change, compare the first, middle and last sounds. Some swaps make real words; others do not.
Some words have three sounds. Say net slowly: /n/, short e, /t/. The first sound is /n/. Short e is the middle sound. The last sound is /t/. To compare words, listen to the same sound position in each one. Listen to the sounds, not the names of the letters.
Blend the onset and rime together to build a word.
Original teaching and practice about onsets, rimes and changing sounds, written for this dataset.
Original reading written for this dataset. The catalog description of 'Blend and Segment' was studied for its use of spoken-part blending and segmenting.
More to read
Parts inside a word
Ask someone to say zip with you. Listen for /z/ before the vowel. That is the onset. The rest, 'ip', is the rime. Say /z/ and 'ip' without a gap to make zip.
Now listen to its three sounds: /z/, short i and /p/. The rime holds the last two sounds together. Two word parts do not always mean two sounds.
Keep 'ip' and replace /z/ with /l/. Blend the parts to make lip. Only the first sound changed.
2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
Nothing; this is a starting point.
Optional connections
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.