What is a consonant cluster?

This is not to be confused with a consonant digraph, where the two letters make one sound. In a consonant cluster, you can hear the two sounds as you say the consonants.

Children tend to learn letter sounds first, then start combining them to read CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words such as hat, top, nag etc.

Once they are confident with this, they will then be introduced to consonant clusters. It can take children a while to be able to read words such as 'trap' when they are used to reading words such as 'tap'. It is important for a teacher to ask a child to sound out the two individual sounds 't' and 'r' and then put them together to make the sound 'tr'.

Teachers may concentrate on one consonant cluster for a set period of time, for example: they may choose to focus on 'mp' for a week, therefore they will give the children phonics activities involving reading and writing words containing 'mp', such as 'jump', 'bump', 'mumps' and 'lamp'. They will encourage children to say these words out loud while looking at the letters and to practise writing the words themselves.