Consonant Cluster 'Silly Friends' Set 1

Child often decode consonant clusters accurately but blend inaccurately. We found that our phonics scheme didn’t incorporate the teaching of consonant clusters sufficiently for our children.

I created ‘silly friends’ as a way of introducing the teaching of consonant clusters in a manner that the children would understand. They already knew about ‘special friends’ and would later be introduced to ‘best friends’.

Each set has 3 sections. Each set is a single A4 sheet of paper that can be laminated.

The first e.g. Set 1, Set 2, Set 3 allows children to practice playing games e.g. fastest finger and pronouncing the consonant cluster (silly friends) correctly.

The second e.g. Set 1A, Set 2A, Set 3A introduces some decodable real and pseudo (have alien pictures next to them) words where children can practice decoding and accurately blending words with the silly friends they have covered in the first set e.g Set 1. The ‘A’ set has the sound buttons on for some support.

The third e.g Set 1B, Set 2B, Set 3B is again in the same format. This time the words do not have the sound buttons on, there is a mixture of real and pseudo words and some words contain more complex sounds. This set aims to build children’s fluency in reading words with the ‘silly friends’ in.

An example Set 1 - bl, fl
Set 1A - blap (alien image), flap - sound buttons present
Set 1B - black, flant (no sound buttons)