Tools for Reading Multisyllabic Words

Decoding multisyllabic words is similar to decoding CVC words. Students us their knowledge of grapheme-phoneme units to decode and fluently read CVC words. Students use their knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence, morphemes*, and syllables to decode multisyllabic words for pronunciation, spelling, and meaning.

Teaching both syllables and morphemes should begin when students have the knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. Students begin analyzing words at birth through the oral language of those in their environment. They analyze words for their sounds and meanings. These are necessary survival skills to communicate their needs. Babies usually change the tone of their cries to match their need at the time. This is the beginning of effective communication that evolves into more precise tones of individual letters and words, as children get older. This knowledge is later transferred to written letters and words. Most students begin noticing and using letters/words in the years leading up to their formal years of education. The amount of written language exposure before they arrive in a formal classroom often dictates the amount of letter and word knowledge a student will have upon entering Kindergarten.

Students who are reading CVC words are analyzing and taking mental notes of how designated sounds of individual and groups of letters are blended to form different sounds. Students rely on these mental notes to assist them as words become increasingly more complex in how the letters are joined together to create words of meaning.

Most students need formal instruction of how to analyze words into a variety of different manageable word parts. Students are taught letter-sound correspondences that are used to decode CVC words by grapheme-phoneme units. Students are taught morphemes that can be used to separate words into chunks or units of meaning for pronunciation, spelling, and meaning.

There are six types of syllables that are taught to assist students in chunking words into smaller parts to help them decode the pronunciation. The English language has six major types of syllables described in the chart below.

Type of syllable CVC Final e Open Vowel Diagraph r-controlled Constant – le
Example cat

log

bit

set

cut

kite

bone

bake

cute

 

me

sky

be/gan

mu/sic

oi – foil

ee – keep

ea – beat

oa boat

oo – zoom

ar – car

ir – girl

er – her

ur – fur

or fork

marble

puddle

bugle

maple

little

Syllables types are usually taught beginning with closed syllables and then moving onto Final e syllables or to the right on the chart. There are steps that usually ease the process of finding syllables in multisyllabic words. The first step is to underline all the vowels in a word. Each syllable has one vowel or vowel digraph. If you count the underlined vowels this will tell you how many syllables are in that word. The second step is to look for affixes. These are natural syllable breaks. Step one and two can be reversed. The third step is looking for double constants that can be separated, such as pp or cn. This is when finding syllables can become harder. Words like jester or jostling both have the double constant “st.” The word jester cannot be separated between the -s- and -t-, yet the word jostling can be separated between the -s- and -t-. Jester has the suffix -er, which makes the word splitable between the -te-. The word jostling has two different suffixes -le and -ing. The syllable/suffix -le takes the -t- to make the syllable -tle. Then the suffix -ing is added that requires dropping the -e- before adding the -ing. This makes the syllable split between the -st-. Once there is just one vowel or vowel team in each syllable, it is time to read the word. Students should read one syllable at a time, such as /off/, /set/, /ting/; then blend the syllables together – /offsetting/.

Orally, students can be taught to clap out a word into syllables, once the word is pronounced for them. Another way to find syllables orally is to place your hand under your chin and then pronounce the word aloud. Each time your chin dips is a syllable. Syllable knowledge increases the accuracy of language pronunciation and comprehension. Syllable knowledge also increases student decoding and encoding skills.

Morphemes are usually taught one at a time, such as -ing or -est. The meaning is discussed along with its origin of language, like Latin or German. Writing words and developing sentences that include the morpheme will increase the relevancy to the student. The study of morphemes usually increases student comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling and usage of different words.

*Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning. Base words are called free morphemes. Affixes might be an inflectional, derivational, or a bound morpheme.

 

 

 

Relieve Student Stress—Teach Spelling

The stress and anxiety that students often feel when they are trying to spell words without the proper tools usually diminishes when students learn how the letters work together to form words of meaning. Students begin learning the sounds of letters and words as they begin mimicking the conversations of their environment. Students begin learning the rules of how letters are encoded into words through their daily interactions with people and their environment. Some letter phonemes are consistent, some phonemes or chunks of words are influenced by other letters within the word. Parents and educators often model how to orally sound out words to provide students the opportunity to mimic words and learn a new tool. This tool usually assists students to more accurately pronounce words. This is called phonological awareness, which is defined as “a reading skill that involves a range of understandings related to the sounds of words and word parts, including identifying and manipulating larger parts of spoken language such as words, syllables, and onset and rime. (Ray, 2017, pp. 13-14).

Students build on the foundation of phonological awareness when they begin to attach graphemes to the spoken sounds. This is when students begin learning letter-sound correspondences. Letter-sound correspondences is the second pillar of structure literacy (Ray, 2020, p. 38). Some graphemes are constant, some have variances that are dependent on how the letters are placed within a word. The rules of how letters influence other letters within a word is identified as phonics. Ray (2017) defines phonics as:

A form of instruction that cultivates the understanding and use of the alphabet, which emphasizes the predictable relationship between phonemes (the sounds in spoken language) and graphemes (the letters that represent those sounds in written language) and shows how this information can be used to read or decode words.” (p. 13)

There are many ways to teach how the letters are encoded to develop words. One type of instruction that may strengthen student sound-letter correspondences and how letters may change individual letter phonemes during the primary grades is to write the symbol(s) that represent the individual sounds of a word. Students begin to understand how letters change their individual sounds based on where they are placed in a word. There are many benefits of teaching students the letter-sound correspondences, such as improved spelling and comprehension. This practice should be taught throughout a student’s formal education, beginning when they start encoding or writing down the graphemes to build words. The complexity of how the letters create different sounds and words increases with each grade-level.

The following is an example of how I often model/instruct later primary students to examine the relationships of phonemes and graphemes. These students usually can read the words that they are examining.

Sound out the word gym.

What letter sounds do you hear?            /___/   /___/   /___/

What letters or letter diagraphs are used to

represent those sounds?                   ____   ____   ____

 

Sound out the word gym.

What letter sounds do you hear?              / j /   / i /   / m /

What letters or letter diagraphs are used to

represent those sounds?                        g       y       m

 

another example:

Sound out the word tardy.

What letter sounds do you hear?                / t /   / ä /   / r /   / d /   / e /

What letters or letter diagraphs are used to

represent those sounds?                          t       a       r       d      y

I usually use spelling words that students are expected to know how to spell at their particular grade level.

Educators might use a different format for teaching students at different grade-levels or complexities of words. When systematic, direct, explicit instruction is used students usually learn the “rules” of how letter placement affects the sounds of words and the spelling of words that are new or hard become natural. When teaching spelling you are essentially teaching all of the pillars of structured literacy (phonemic awareness→letter-sound correspondences→syllables→ morphology→ syntax→semantics).

References

Ray, J. S. (2020). Structured Literacy Supports All Learners: Students At-Risk of Literacy Acquisition – Dyslexia and English Learners. Texas Association for Literacy Education Yearbook, Vol. 7, pp. 37-43.

Ray, J. S. (2017). Tier 2 intervention for students in grades 1-3 identified as at-risk in reading. (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University). https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3826/

 

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