Digraphs and Blends

Digraphs and BlendsDigraphs and Blends by Wiley Blevins, Sean O'Neill
Published by Red Chair Press on January 1st 2019
ISBN: 1634403444
Pages: 32
Goodreads
two-stars

Inconsistent coverage of the topic in this Sound It Out – LOOK! Books ™. Clear, close-up photographs, mostly of children’s faces, sometimes objects, such as a whale or tops appear on the right-hand side of each page. Large font text occupies the left-hand side. Some pages have  a small drawing inset showing another object mentioned on the page.

Readers may be confused by the discussion of blends.  L-blends and r-blends have the target letter as the second letter, but s-blends have ‘s’ as the first letter. The text says, “As far as blends go, this is the end.” This is misleading as there are many other blends. 

In the digraphs discussion, it gives a rule for some words and says there are some words that break that rule, but those words are not given, nor is the reader prompted to think of them. On some other pages, the reader is prompted to think up additional words.

This could be useful for a teacher to introduce digraphs and blends, but most elementary students would probably not use this as for self-guided instruction.

Reviewed by Lynn Mayer, Librarian, Old Town Elementary School, Old Town

two-stars