Continue to improve your reading skills in Improve Your Reading: Phonics and Poetry Part 3: Beginning Consonant Sounds. In this course, we continue our study of phonics, which is the study of the relationship of letters or letter patterns and their sounds. By learning the sounds of the different patterns, you can more easily pronounce words correctly.

In this course you will learn about beginning consonants sounds in letter combinations that are called consonant blends and consonant digraphs. These are 2-letter combinations that you will often see at the beginning of words

Consonant blends are letter combinations in which you hear the distinct sound of each letter, such as /bl/, /st/, /dr/. Words that start with these blends include black, blue, study, stable, drive, and drop.

Consonant digraphs are letter combinations that together form a single sound, such as /sh/, /ch/, /qu/, /th/, and /wr/. Words that start with these combinations include share, shallow, church, churn, queen, quote, think, thought, write, and wring.

We will also study words that have consonant blends and digraphs together. These letter patterns include /shr/ and /sph/, and are seen in words such as shrink and sphere.

In each lesson, you will learn words that begin with the target consonant blend or digraph. Each word is read aloud so that you can hear its correct pronunciation as you read it to yourself. Then you will hear sentences using words with the particularscombination for that lesson. The lesson ends with a poem, andwords with the target blend or digraph are highlighted. You can listen to the poems, and read as you follow along. This is great practice, and will help you improve your reading skills.