blinding
adjSo bright that it hurts your eyes to look at it.
adjCausing someone to lose their sight or to be unable to see clearly.
nounA layer of sand or gravel spread on a road surface to fill small gaps.
Syllables
2 syllables
Letters
Phonics breakdown
Phonics Rule: BL Blend
B and L blend together — you hear both sounds! Like in 'black' and 'blue'.
In a consonant blend, you hear each letter's sound, but they are spoken together quickly. BL blends /b/ and /l/ together.
Examples
Phonics Rule: Open Syllable I (Long I)
When I is the last letter of a syllable, the syllable is open and the I says its name /aɪ/ — like in 'hi' and 'fi-nal'.
This is the open-syllable pattern: a syllable that ends in a vowel leaves it 'open', so it says its long name. Here, a lone I at the end of a syllable says /aɪ/ (hi, si-lent). The I also says its long name before two consonants in the 'ind' and 'ild' families (find, kind, child, mild). The long I sound is also spelled other ways, each its own rule — silent E (bike) or igh (night) — but those are not open syllables.
Tip
Long I says its name — I!
Examples
Phonics Rule: ND End Blend
ND at the end of a syllable blends /n/ and /d/ together, like in 'hand', 'sand', and 'send'.
ND is a common end blend (coda blend). The nasal /n/ and voiced stop /d/ are both heard. It appears very frequently in English words.
Tip
ND ends with a d-d-d — hand, sand, send!
Examples
Phonics Rule: Suffix -ING
Adding -ING to a verb shows something is happening right now, like 'running' and 'playing'.
The suffix -ing is added to verbs to show an ongoing action (present participle). Sometimes the base word changes: drop silent E ('make' → 'making'), double final consonant ('run' → 'running').
Examples
What is SnapPhonics?
A phonics reference for teachers, parents and learners. Every English word, broken into the sounds that make it — with audio, syllables, and the rule behind each spelling.
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