I first heard about blending lines in A Fresh Look at Phonics by Wiley Blevins. He recommends them as a tool to practice blending with your current phonics skill during whole class instruction. He incorporates intentional, continued review, frontloading of words students will have within decodable texts, and challenging words for more advanced readers. Because I use blending lines solely within my small group instruction, rather than during whole group instruction, I use them a

By the time students reach 3rd grade, phonics is no longer a large part of typical classroom instruction. Third grade is the year that instruction shifts to more of a focus on morphology and understanding roots and affixes while incorporating some phonics review. It’s also the year that comprehension and written expression begins to take a larger focus.  But there’s still a place for phonics in 3rd grade. Every single year I’ve been a teacher