What is Segmenting?

Segmenting is the opposite of blending and is the technique used to help with spelling. When blending to read words, you push sounds together to make the word, but pull them apart with segmenting.

You can help your child to segment words by saying the whole word first and then breaking it into individual sounds. For each sound they hear, ask your child to write a letter to represent the sound.

Some sounds are made using 2 letters (digraph) or 3 letters (trigraphs). When segmenting, we need to say each sound rather than each letter.

For example, the s and h work together to make one sound sh. Therefore we would sound it out as sh-i-p not s-h-i-p.

Oral Segmenting

You can help your child develop segmenting skills every day by using oral segmenting as you do daily tasks. Say a word, then model how to sound it out. Let's brush our teeth, t-ee-th. It's time for bed, b-e-d.

Early Spelling

When your child begins to spell, they will probably make phonetically plausible attempts at spelling. When they write down the sounds they can hear, your child will use sounds they have been taught, which might not be the correct spelling e.g. luv for love. This is great because it shows they are applying their phonic knowledge as they begin to write.

Tricky Words

Tricky words are harder to segment. They contain a tricky part that looks different to how your child might expect it to look because they might not have been taught that sound yet.

We can sound them out, but we must identify and remember which letters are used to spell the tricky part! The black sound buttons show the sounds. The white letter shows the tricky part that needs to be learnt by heart because it breaks the rules or hasn't been learnt yet

Resources:

Click the pictures to download printable tricky word flashcards.

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