Vowel Sounds & Spelling Patterns

These resources are good for working with adult beginning English learners who are either entirely unfamiliar with the Roman alphabet or never had the opportunity to develop literacy in their first language.

Why teach syllables?

Each syllable in English has one vowel sound, including diphthongs like ow and  oi.  Learning to read words in syllable chunks helps learners decode unfamiliar words.

Understanding the six syllable types simplifies decoding and pronunciation.

Incorrect syllable stress often causes more issues with understandability than incorrect vowel or consonant pronunciation.  Native speakers often automatically mentally correct common letter mispronunciations (such as d or t for th), but misplaced syllable stress can block comprehension.

Six syllable types

• Closed
  The syllable has 1 vowel, and it's not the last letter of the syllable.  The vowel usually makes its short sound.

• Open
  The syllable has 1 vowel, and it's the last letter of the syllable.   In syllables with stress the vowel usually makes its long sound.
  In unstressed syllables, the vowel often makes the relaxed (lazy) schwa sound, such as a  in about or i in pencil.
  There are commonly used words that are exceptions, such as do, to, two, who.

• Vowel-consonant-silent E
  The syllable has a single vowel, followed by one or more consonants, followed by a silent E.  The vowel usually makes its long sound, but learners need to recognize other uses of silent E that do not create the long vowel sound, such as:
  - Silent E after V (have, give, love)
  - Silent E after soft-C or soft-G (dance, garage)
  - Silent E in a final stable syllable (see below)

• Vowel team
  The syllable has more than one letter making the vowel sound.  Vowel teams can have long, short, broad, or diphthong sounds.
  Some vowel teams have a single sound; these are the first teams to teach: ai/ay, au/aw, ee, igh, oa, oi/oy, ui).
  Other vowel teams have more than one sound: augh, ea, ei, eigh, ew, ey, oe, oo, ou, ough, ow, ue
  When introducing these multi-sound vowel teams, I point out examples of the multiple pronunciations using words that are in the learner's oral vocabulary (such as eat, bread and great for the ea vowel team).

• Vowel-R
  The vowel or vowel team is followed by an R.
  AR and OR/OOR sounds in stressed syllables are largely consistent.
  The "er" sound can be spelled with ER, IR, UR, and occasionally OR (especially following W) and EAR.  There are no easy rules for knowing which spelling to use, but this mnemonic shows the order of frequency of use (in descending order):
  Her first nurse works early.

• Final stable syllable
  Every syllable in English needs a vowel.  Final, unstressed syllables consisting of a consonant + L or R need a vowel, so we add a silent E.  Examples:  table, apple, bicycle, acre.

More resources

• Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy - lesson plans for adult literacy for English learners (https://sites.google.com/view/adultellliteracyindy/home) 

• Bishop, M. (1986) The ABCs and All Their Tricks.  Mott Media.

• Eide, D. Uncovering the Logic of English.  2012. Logic of English, Inc.

• Moats, L., Tolman, C. Six Syllable Types.  Reading Rockets.
  (https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/spelling-and-word-study/articles/six-syllable-types)

Classroom videos from Literacy Minnesota of in-person classes with beginning learners.  https://www.literacymn.org/classroom-videos.  Includes:

• Orton-Gillingham Phonics Approach. 2020. https://youtu.be/dLpljcgV1hA 

• Phonics and Rhyme Activities. 2019.  https://youtu.be/JnI_cfJOcRg 

• Word Stress Routine. 2019. https://youtu.be/q5PtGQCJAWs