Consonant Blends
The English language is constructed of many different sounds: vowels, consonants, long vowels and short vowels. Sometimes sounds blend together as is the case with consonant blends.
Consonant blends are a collection of two or three different consonant sounds that are each heard when the word is pronounced. For example, let's look at the word "drink." Both the letters "d" and "r" are consonants. When the word "drink" is pronounced, you can clearly hear the sounds of both of these letters, making it a consonant blend.
Joining to Become Consonant Blends
Letters Commonly Mixed Together
You can become more familar and comfortable with consonant blends by examining some of the letters that are commonly joined together in consonant blends including:
• bl
• br
• pr
• dr
• fl
• cl
• gl
• sl
• cr
• pl
• fr
• gr
• tr
• sc
• sk
• st
• sw
• sn
• sm
• wh
• str
• sh
• th
• tw
• wr
• sch
• shr
• sph
• scr
• spl
• spr
• squ
• thr
Many of these consonant blends probably look familiar to you since we all use words with them on a daily basis.
Examples of Words with Consonant Blends
Now that you have a firm grasp on what consonant blends actually are, let's look at some examples of commonly used and heard words that use them.
• blue, black, blanket, blame, bluebird, bleak
• brain, brand, brave, brat, breeze, breathe, breed, break
• click, clap, clarify, clash, clock
• crumb, cry, crow, crew, crazy, create, creation, credit, creature
• drew, draw, drain, drink, drag, dragon
• flower, flew, fly, Florida, flash
• fry, free, freedom, fruit
• gleam, glue, glide, glad, glance, glass, glaze
• great, grape, grapes, grandparents, grapefruit, gravity
• plow, play, playmate, plea, plate
• pray, prey, pretzel, , press, price, pride, prime
• school, schedule,
• score, scorch, scorpion, scorn, science, scientific, scanner, scapegoat
• scribe, scramble, scream, screen, scroll
• show, shave, shame, shore, shoe, shadow
• shrink, shrine, shrimp, shroud
• skinny, skate, skeleton, ski, skill, skim
• slack, sleeve, slot, slice, slim, slime, slow, sleep
• small, smash, smell, smelt, smog, smock
• sneak, snuck, snob, snobby, snub, sneeze
• sphinx, sphere, spherical
• splash, splendid, splinter, splints, splinters
• sprite, spray, spry
• squash, squeezes, squeeze
• stair, stop, stare, store, story, stake
• struck, strike, strange, strain, straight, street
• sweet, swan, swam, swim, swamp, sweater
• the, that, those, though, theme, think, these, thank, them, then
• through, throw, threat, thread
• try, tree, trail, train, track, trash, travel, translate
• tweet, twice, twenty
• white, where, when, why, wheel
• Write, wrote, wrong, wriggle, wrinkle, wring, wrongful, wrought, wrist, written
All of these words take either two consonant sounds together (known as a digraph) or three consonant sounds together (known as a trigraph) to create new sounds.