Multisensory Learning

Target the Decoding Gap, Part 1: Blending Phonemes

If the gap is blending phonemes, students may know many of their letter sounds…but still struggle to get the word to come together accurately during reading.

Teachers might notice:
→ sounds produced slowly or separately
→ phonemes dropped during blending (“lit” for list)
→ phonemes added (“limp” for lip)
→ phonemes substituted (“mat” for map)
→ sounds said correctly, but the wrong word produced (“pat” for tap)

This often happens because decoding requires more than identifying individual sounds. Students must hold the sounds in sequence, maintain them across the whole word, and coordinate them continuously enough for the pronunciation to resolve accurately.

When sound production becomes too segmented or disconnected, the system can break down before the word fully comes together.

That’s why connected phonation can be such a powerful support for early blending.

Instead of repeatedly stopping and restarting between sounds, the phonation remains connected across the word:
“mmmaaaap”

This helps reduce the memory and coordination load by keeping the sounds active long enough for the word to resolve.

Cumulative blending can also help move students away from fully segmented sound production—but connected phonation keeps the sounds connected more continuously across the word, which can make blending more efficient for many learners.

Some supports that can help:
• connected phonation
• continuous sounds early in instruction
• reduced phoneme count
• blending with print from the start

This is one of the reasons Sounds of Success emphasizes connected phonation and immediate application to print during early phonemic awareness instruction.

If we want students to decode words in real reading, we need to model and provide guided practice that mirrors the continuous processing decoding actually requires—and do so alongside print.

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Reading is not “natural.”
Kids don’t absorb it.
They don’t pick it up like talking or walking.

The reading brain isn’t born —
it’s built.

And it’s one of the most complex things the brain ever learns to do.

To read a single sentence, the brain must instantly coordinate:

🧠 Phonological processing — hearing and pulling apart sounds
🔤 Orthographic mapping — linking letters to sounds, permanently
🎧 Auditory + visual systems — working in perfect sync
📚 Background knowledge & vocabulary — making meaning
⚡ Working memory — holding information as they decode
🧩 Executive function — attention, persistence, self-monitoring

This isn’t guessing. This isn’t “just exposure.”
This is neural architecture.

And when a child struggles, it isn’t because they’re lazy, uninterested, or “behind.”

It’s because the pathways need to be taught —
explicitly, systematically, and with support that reflects how the brain learns.

Reading is a science.
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Brains change.
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