Blending means joining speech sounds to make a word. Segmenting is the reverse: separating a spoken word into its sounds. A quick turn-taking game can practise both without making home feel like another lesson.

Play for a few minutes

Choose five or six familiar words that use patterns your child already knows.

Say a word in “robot talk”, separating the sounds:

• c-oa-t

• sh-ee-p

• f-r-o-g

Ask your child to blend the sounds and say the whole word. Then swap roles: say a whole word and let your child separate it into sounds.

Use sounds rather than letter names, and say each sound cleanly without adding “uh”: “mmm”, not “muh”, and “sss”, not “suh”. The extra “uh” makes the sounds harder to blend. Remember that one sound can be written with two or more letters, such as sh or igh.

I Spy uses the same skill and can be played anywhere. Give the first sound of the object: “I spy something beginning with mmm.” Once first sounds are easy, try last sounds: “I spy something ending in t.”

Model gently

If your child is unsure, demonstrate one example and try an easier word next. If single sounds are still hard, step back to an easier listening game for a while, such as clapping the syllables in a name or food (ap-ple, el-e-phant) or taking turns to find words that rhyme with hat. Keep the pace playful and stop while the activity is still going well.

Avoid turning the game into a test, adding words with patterns that have not been taught or correcting every small hesitation. The aim is accurate listening and blending, not speed.

You can ask school for a short list of suitable words so the game matches current phonics teaching.