Consonant blends, also known as consonant clusters or adjacent consonants, are groups of two or three consonants that are pronounced together without a vowel sound in between. Each consonant in a blend retains its own sound, and the sounds are blended together to create a new sound. For example, the consonant blend /bl/ makes the sound you hear in the word "black". Consonant blends can be found at the beginning, middle, or end of words.

Consonant blends are important in phonics, which is the study of how letters and letter combinations represent sounds in spoken language. They can be particularly tricky for beginning readers, and distinguishing voiced and unvoiced consonants is important for young readers, especially when it comes to consonant clusters.

It is important to note that blends should not be described as one sound in phonics or spelling instruction, as each phoneme can be heard in a blend. There are 27 consonant clusters that come at the beginning of syllables and 49 consonant clusters that come at the end, and only three of these occur in both positions.