Big Words Take Big Resolve: Tackling Multisyllabic Words

The books that many second-graders read are full of multisyllabic words, and so, more instruction needs to focus on transitioning to longer, more complex words earlier in the year.  Working with multisyllabic words can be a cognitive load for readers, but it can also create an emotional load, since many children are intimidated by the sheer length of words once a second or third syllable is involved.  Add to that the likelihood that the multisyllabic word is one the reader has never heard before, and that reader is indeed facing a challenge.  Helping children muster the courage to recognize the difficulty and still tackle these words- rather than just mumbling past them- is as important as solving the words themselves.

Unit 2 launches with an upset Gus, who is having a difficult time tying his shoes.  “It’s too big of a challenge,” he says, and he has decided to give up.  Students will quickly teach Gus how it’s done, step by step, which will lead to the teaching point for the session: although words don’t come with a set of directions for solving them, any challenge can be broken down into manageable steps.  Readers can 1) spot the challenge, 2) tackle it and 3) check it.  This is especially meant to rally readers who may not even recognize that there is a challenge to face.  When readers skip words, especially in nonfiction books, they run the risk of missing out on important information.  Students will learn several strategies for decoding multisyllabic words, but the larger goal is to help kids develop the stance that readers tackle challenges, rather than back away from them.

The second bend sheds light on the complex consonant combinations that readers find across words, from tip to tail.  Students will study silent consonants and explore hard and soft consonants that can be tricky for readers.  The goal is to help students develop an understanding of the concept of complex consonants, as well as strategies for tackling them- not simply acquire a collection of item knowledge.  This second bend culminates with a hunt for camouflaged consonants of all kinds around the classroom- in books, on charts, in kids’ writing.  

In Bend III, attention will be turned to the endings, or tails, of words.  Across this bend, students will learn a few common spelling tips for adding inflected endings to words. They will also be formally introduced to a new tail, -tion, when Gus notices the need.  Another tail, -ly, is introduced in an extension in Session 17 alongside new word wall words.  In the final session, students will circle back to Session 1, where Gus, now emboldened, makes a plea to the class for help to tackle a new challenge.  Clad in his “Save the Animals” T-shirt, he has started a letter to Congress to increase conservation funding.  Through interactive writing, students will finish the letter, and then prepare for an awareness-raising march to the school mailbox, complete with signs and chants.