Chaining Practice
What is a chain?
A chain is a list of words that only change by one sound. That one sound might be spelled by one, two, three, or four letters. Here is an example of a chain:
mat > met > pet > pit > it > hit > him
Why do we do chaining?
We use chaining exercises at school to build students’ accuracy and automaticity at using the phonetic sound-spelling correspondences they have learned. Chaining helps students focus on the individual sounds that make up a word and how they are spelled.
Where can I find chains to practice with my student at home?
There is a chart of chains at the bottom of this page.
What materials do we need to do chaining at home?
Chaining can be done with a markerboard and marker, paper and pencil, magnetic letters, or letter cards.
How to do Chaining for Reading
- Write the first word of a chain for the student to see (e.g., mat).
- Have the student sound out the first word. It is helpful to run their finger under the letters of the word as they do this.
- Change the one spelling in the first word of the chain so it now spells the second word of the chain (e.g., change the a to e, so the word is now met).
- Say, “If that word was (mat), what is this new word?”
- Help the student sound it out.
- Ask, “What sound makes the new word different from the old word?”
- “What letter(s) changed?”
- “Spell the new word out loud.”
- Repeat steps 3-5 for each word in the chain.
How to do Chaining for Spelling or Dictation
- Have the student write the first word of a chain (mat) by breaking the word into it’s sounds and writing the spelling for each one. For example, /m/=m /a/=a /t/=t.
- Say, “If this is (mat), show me (met).” (Met in this example is the second word in the chain).
- Provide help as needed for the student to hear which sound changed and then identify how to spell that new sound.
- Ask, “Which sound changed in the word (mat) to get the word (met).”
- “What letter(s) changed?”
- Repeat steps 2-4 to move from the current word to the next word in the chain.
