Jenn,
Distinguishing between short i and short e is a common difficulty, especially for those in certain areas of the US. Check out our 6 Tips to Help Distinguish Between Short I and Short E blog post for ideas and helps.

As for segmenting words with ending blends, first, can your son say the words correctly? If you say mend, can he repeat mend, or does he leave out a sound?

Also, how does he do with reading blends? If he struggles with reading blends, you may want to take a break and work through All About Reading 1 first, and then try spelling again.

If he doesn’t have any trouble reading words with blends, then:

Have you tried the tips on page 66 in the big gray box? First you jump from square to square, and then he does it? I might try that method for a while and then go back to trying with the tokens.

My son struggled with auditory processing in a similar way at this age. Another game I played with him: I would take letter tiles for a word like mend, and mix them up–so I might have enmd. Then I would tell him, “I want to make mend. What letter comes first?” He pulls down the M. “Great! What is the next sound?” and so on. Sometimes he might make the word incorrectly. So I might say, “Oh, I would read that ‘medn.’ That’s different from mend, isn’t it? (emphasizing the d before the nnnnn). Do you know how to change this to make mennnnd?”

Another one you can do is to start with a word like med. If he can build it with tiles, great, let him do that. Then say, “Now I want to change med into mend. That one has another sound, doesn’t it? How can I make mend?” Then you could talk about med. “Med has 3 sounds, doesn’t it? Let’s count them (use the tokens). Good! Now if I change it to mend, how many sounds does that have? Let’s count them.” Try to have him say each sound. If he misses one, you could say, “Let’s try again, listen closely,” and you then say the sounds while he pulls down a token for each sound. Then after you segment a word, say, “Ok, now you try it, you say the sounds in this word,” and see if he can say them all while jumping or pulling down tokens.

Some sounds get muffled together. If the /n/ sound in mend is getting lost, make sure you really punctuate that /n/ sound when you say it. Also, have him watch your mouth while you say the sounds. Mend is a good word to pick on because you can drag out every sound, /mmmmm/ /eeeee/ /nnnnn/ except the final /d/. Give a little pause between each one, then do it again with a long slow blend, and then again blending it fast (we used to say, “say it slow,” and “say it fast.”)

Keep the lessons short & upbeat. If it’s getting to be nicer weather, you could take your lesson outside with some sidewalk chalk too & let him jump out there from square to square. Don’t be afraid to camp out on this lesson for a while nad just do a few words each day. I think it will pay off. I know my son especially had some long plateaus when he was learning to read and spell, and this one (beginning and ending consonant blends) is one we spent some time on.

I hope this helps some. I would love to hear how it goes after a week or two of working on it.

Thank you, Morina!

I’m glad this is useful for you, Rebecca. If you have any questions, please just let me know.

You’re welcome, Bobbie! Thank you.

You’re welcome, Angel! I’m glad this was helpful for you.