By Sebastian Turner, Co-Founder of Once, former classroom teacher, and Bay Area resident, expecting his first child this year.
Here’s a moment that will feel familiar to a lot of parents.
Your child has been working on letter sounds. You’ve practiced. They can tell you that M says /mmm/ and A says /aaa/ and T says /t/. You feel good about this. Then you point to the word “mat” and ask them to read it, and they look at you like you’ve asked them to do something completely different. Because, to them, you have.
Knowing sounds and blending sounds into words are two different skills. The gap between them trips up a lot of children, and a lot of parents. Once you understand what’s happening at that step, it becomes much easier to help.
The problem with pausing
When a child sounds out a word by producing each sound separately with a brief stop in between — /mmm/ (pause) /aaa/ (pause) /t/ — their brain often can’t hold the beginning of the word by the time they get to the end. The first sound has faded before the last one arrives. They hear something like “at,” and they don’t recognize it as a word, because the /m/ has already evaporated.
The pause is what breaks the connection. Eliminating the pause is the fix.
A technique that actually works
The approach is sometimes called connected phonation. The idea is simple: instead of producing sounds as separate beats, the child stretches them out and connects them, holding each one while they begin to move into the next.
So “mat” doesn’t sound like /mmm/ (pause) /aaa/ (pause) /t/. It sounds like /mmmaaaat/, one continuous sound that starts at the beginning of the word and runs all the way to the end without a break. The child isn’t pausing between sounds. They’re stretching them and sliding forward.
When a child does this correctly, something clicks. They hear their own voice saying the word slowly, and their brain recognizes it. That’s the lightbulb moment that blending is supposed to produce, and the pause is what prevents it from happening.
If your child is getting stuck at this step, try modeling it yourself first. Say the word in a single slow stretch, and ask them to copy you. Don’t break it into pieces for them. Let them hear what connected sounds sound like, and then ask them to try it.
A word on guessing
One thing worth knowing, especially if you’re evaluating apps, workbooks, or school programs: some early reading approaches teach children to look at pictures, think about context, or guess what a word might be based on the first letter. The intention is usually to make the process feel less labored.
The problem is that guessing is the opposite of decoding. A child who learns to guess strategically is building a habit that will work until the words get harder, and then stop working. The research on this is consistent. We want children to look at the word, use the sounds they know, and work through it systematically. That’s slower at first. It builds something that lasts.
A free decodable book to practice with
Once publishes a series of decodable books, which are books specifically designed so that a child can read them using the sounds they’ve already learned. They’re not books you read to your child. They’re books you read with your child, where the child is doing the actual reading work.
“A Special Treat” is one of them, and it’s free. It’s built for early readers who are just beginning to put sounds together into words. The words in it are decodable with a small set of foundational sounds, which means your child can work through it systematically rather than relying on memorization or guessing. You sit next to them. You use the no-pause technique when they get stuck. They read.
That experience — of actually reading a book, not being read to — is different from almost anything else in early literacy. It is worth finding fifteen minutes for.
Read “A Special Treat” free: books.tryonce.com
As always: whatever your child is working on at school, stay in conversation with their teacher. A good decodable book reinforces what’s already happening in the classroom. It’s a complement to the work educators are doing, not a replacement for it.
Sebastian Turner is a co-founder of Once, a science-of-reading-based early literacy program. He lives in Oakland, previously taught in the classroom, and is expecting his first child.
