Segmenting words into syllables helps students decode multisyllabic words. Students will begin to recognize syllable patterns which will assist with reading fluency. For example, given a word, students can record the word and number of syllables on a student worksheet. Moreover, students can use hyphens to indicate syllables (i.e., har-mon-i-ca). Using this strategy, students can break apart words based on different syllable patterns.

Syllable Patterns:

• Open syllables (i.e., ha-lo, ze-ro)

• Closed syllables (i.e., fan-tas-tic, in-sis-tent)

• Vowel consonant -e (i.e., like-wise, pipe-line)

• Vowel pair syllables (steam-boat, week-day)

• R-controlled syllables (i.e., barn-yard, or-der)

• Consonant -le syllables (i.e., sam-ple, cir-cle)

Students with learning disabilities tend to have difficulty breaking apart multisyllabic words when decoding. Often times, students will impulsively express a word they are familiar with based on a few common letters, rather than use a strategy to sound out the entire word. Identifying syllable patterns will help students read longer words with accuracy.

In order to promote generalization, the teacher should model, describe, and demonstrate each of the seven syllable patterns in isolation. It is important to teach the syllable patterns in isolation because of explicit language rules. Students need several opportunities to practice the skill in whole group, small group, and individually. To ensure students understand the newly learned skill, the teacher should provide examples and non-examples and break apart some of the words incorrectly. Here, the teacher would refer to the rules and explain why the word was broken up wrong. Following, the teacher will model each step in sequential order and have students work with a partner to assess their knowledge.

Activity: Pair students up with a peer. Give the students a bag containing different multisyllabic words written on index cards. Have one student try to read the word aloud. Encourage students to look for short vowels, CVC words, vowel teams, and other previously taught syllable patterns. Advise students to find out how many syllables are in each word. Give students a recording sheet where they write the word in the first column and in the second column they break apart the word into its syllables. After breaking apart the word, students have to orally express each syllable pattern to determine if they broke apart the word correctly and blended the sounds back together fluently. The teacher will provide each group with an answer sheet upon completing the second column. In the third column, students will place an “✖” or a “✔” depending on whether or not they segmented and blended the word correctly.