Blend Schmend!

I have a student who insists on putting either an SC or a DR consonant blend in front of every word ending to make a rhyming word.

Why?

Because he likes the picture on his Consonant Blend chart for the DR blend (a DRAGON) and the picture for the SC blend (a SCORPION). As one might imagine, this tendency is thwarting his ability to generate real rhyming words and grasp how word families work.

For example, for the word ending -ING, his peers generated the rhyming words

BRING, THING, SWING, and STING.

His words were DRING and SCING.

For the word ending -OCK, his peers built the words FLOCK, CROCK, BLOCK, and SHOCK.

His words were DROCK and SCOCK.

This is fine if we ask for nonsense words, but when real words are called for (as they usually are) – nope and nope.

After unsuccessful tries at redirection, today we got creative in our attempt at remediation. After class, my assistant and I covertly altered his Consonant Blend chart. I drew new pictures representing DR and SC, and masterfully glued them on top of the dragon and the scorpion (heh heh). Next, we photocopied the modified paper so the changes were not evident. Finally, we replaced his old chart with the new revised version. Not only is this adaptation likely to curtail his exclusivity with DR and SC, it is sure to give us a chuckle when he discovers that his dragon has horribly morphed into a pink DRESS (ugh!) and his scorpion has transformed into a boring kitchen utensil – a SCOOP!

Of course we’ll be none the wiser.

And somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that once he expands his repertoire a bit, the dragon and the scorpion will magically reappear.