How to mark up syllables

FUNdations - 2nd Grade Sabers :)

Six Syllable Types | Reading Rockets

By: Louisa Moats, Carol Tolman

Six written syllable-spelling conventions are used in English spelling. These were regularized by Noah Webster to justify his 1806 dictionary's division of syllables. The conventions are useful to teach because they help students remember when to double letters in spelling and how to pronounce the vowels in new words. The conventions also help teachers organize decoding and spelling instruction.

Warm-up: Why double?

Read this fascinating tale. As you read, underline words in which there are two or more consonants between the first and second syllables.

Thunker's pet cats, Pete and Kate, enjoyed dining on dinner. They were fated to fatness. The pet Pete, who was cuter than Kate, was a cutter cat with sharp claws and teeth, scary scars, and one jagged ear.

Pete was ripping up ripening apples and biting bitter strips of striped bug bits as he stared into the starry night. The cat Kate was not as scared or scarred. Kate liked licking slimy slops that slopped from a bucket, sitting at a site that sloped and caused the slop to slide. Kate liked sitting at the site where the slops slid.

— Created by Bruce Rosow (Moats & Rosow, 2003)

What do you notice about the vowel sounds that come before the doubled consonants?

Why teach syllables?

Without a strategy for chunking longer words into manageable parts, students may look at a longer word and simply resort to guessing what it is — or altogether skipping it. Familiarity with syllable-spelling conventions helps readers know whether a vowel is long, short, a diphthong, r-controlled, or whether endings have been added. Familiarity with syllable patterns helps students to read longer words accurately and fluently and to solve spelling problems — although knowledge of syllables alone is not sufficient for being a good speller.

Spoken and written syllables are different

Say these word pairs aloud and listen to where the syllable breaks occur:

bridle – riddle     table –   tatter     even – ever

Spoken syllables are organized around a vowel sound. Each word above has two syllables. The jaw drops open when a vowel in a syllable is spoken. Syllables can be counted by putting your hand under your chin and feeling the number of times the jaw drops for a vowel sound.

Spoken syllable divisions often do not coincide with or give the rationale for the conventions of written syllables. In the first word pair above, you may naturally divide the spoken syllables of bridle between bri and dle and the spoken syllables of riddle between ri and ddle. Nevertheless, the syllable rid is "closed" because it has a short vowel; therefore, it must end with consonant. The first syllable bri is "open," because the syllable ends with a long vowel sound. The result of the syllable-combining process leaves a double d in riddle (a closed syllable plus consonant-le) but not in bridle (open syllable plus consonant-le). These spelling conventions are among many that were invented to help readers decide how to pronounce and spell a printed word.

The hourglass illustrates the chronology or sequence in which students learn about both spoken and written syllables. Segmenting and blending spoken syllables is an early phonological awareness skill; reading syllable patterns is a more advanced decoding skill, reliant on student mastery of phoneme awareness and phoneme-grapheme correspondences.

Figure 5.1. Hourglass Depiction of the Relationship Between Awareness in Oral Language and Written Syllable Decoding
(Contributed by Carol Tolman, and used with permission.)

Click to see full image

Closed syllables

The closed syllable is the most common spelling unit in English; it accounts for just under 50 percent of the syllables in running text. When the vowel of a syllable is short, the syllable will be closed off by one or more consonants. Therefore, if a closed syllable is connected to another syllable that begins with a consonant, two consonant letters will come between the syllables (com-mon, but-ter).

Two or more consonant letters often follow short vowels in closed syllables (dodge, stretch, back, stuff, doll, mess, jazz). This is a spelling convention; the extra letters do not represent extra sounds. Each of these example words has only one consonant phoneme at the end of the word. The letters give the short vowel extra protection against the unwanted influence of vowel suffixes (backing; stuffed; messy).

Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) syllables

Also known as "magic e" syllable patterns, VCe syllables contain long vowels spelled with a single letter, followed by a single consonant, and a silent e. Examples of VCe syllables are found in wake, whale, while, yoke, yore, rude, and hare. Every long vowel can be spelled with a VCe pattern, although spelling "long e" with VCe is unusual.

Open syllables

If a syllable is open, it will end with a long vowel sound spelled with one vowel letter; there will be no consonant to close it and protect the vowel (to-tal, ri-val, bi-ble, mo-tor). Therefore, when syllables are combined, there will be no doubled consonant between an open syllable and one that follows.

A few single-syllable words in English are also open syllables. They include me, she, he and no, so, go. In Romance languages — especially Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian — open syllables predominate.

Vowel team syllables

A vowel team may be two, three, or four letters; thus, the term vowel digraph is not used. A vowel team can represent a long, short, or diphthong vowel sound. Vowel teams occur most often in old Anglo-Saxon words whose pronunciations have changed over hundreds of years. They must be learned gradually through word sorting and systematic practice. Examples of vowel teams are found in thief, boil, hay, suit, boat, and straw.

Sometimes, consonant letters are used in vowel teams. The letter y is found in ey, ay, oy, and uy, and the letter w is found in ew, aw, and ow. It is not accurate to say that "w can be a vowel," because the letter is working as part of a vowel team to represent a single vowel sound. Other vowel teams that use consonant letters are -augh, -ough, -igh, and the silent -al spelling for /aw/, as in walk.

Vowel-r syllables

We have chosen the term "vowel-r" over "r-controlled" because the sequence of letters in this type of syllable is a vowel followed by r (er, ir, ur, ar, or). Vowel-r syllables are numerous, variable, and difficult for students to master; they require continuous review. The /r/ phoneme is elusive for students whose phonological awareness is underdeveloped. Examples of vowel-r syllables are found in perform, ardor, mirror, further, worth, and wart.

Consonant-le (C-le) syllables

Also known as the stable final syllable, C-le combinations are found only at the ends of words. If a C-le syllable is combined with an open syllable — as in cable, bugle, or title — there is no doubled consonant. If one is combined with a closed syllable — as in dabble, topple, or little — a double consonant results.

Not every consonant is found in a C-le syllable. These are the ones that are used in English:

Simple and complex syllables

Closed, open, vowel team, vowel-r, and VCe syllables can be either simple or complex. A complex syllable is any syllable containing a consonant cluster (i.e., a sequence of two or three consonant phonemes) spelled with a consonant blend before and/or after the vowel. Simple syllables have no consonant clusters.

Complex syllables are more difficult for students than simple syllables. Introduce complex syllables after students can handle simple syllables.

Table 5.1. Summary of Six Types of Syllables in English Orthography

Syllable Type	Examples	Definition
Closed	dap-ple hos-tel bev-er-age	A syllable with a short vowel, spelled with a single vowel letter ending in one or more consonants.
Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe)	com-pete des-pite	A syllable with a long vowel, spelled with one vowel + one consonant + silent e.
Open	pro-gram ta-ble re-cent	A syllable that ends with a long vowel sound, spelled with a single vowel letter.
Vowel Team (including diphthongs)	aw-ful train-er con-geal spoil-age	Syllables with long or short vowel spellings that use two to four letters to spell the vowel. Diphthongs ou/ow and oi/oy are included in this category.
Vowel-r (r-controlled)	in-jur-i-ous con-sort char-ter	A syllable with er, ir, or, ar, or ur. Vowel pronunciation often changes before /r/.
Consonant-le (C-le)	drib-ble bea-gle lit-tle	An unaccented final syllable that contains a consonant before /l/, followed by a silent e.
Leftovers: Odd and Schwa syllables	dam-age act-ive na-tion	Usually final, unaccented syllables with odd spellings.

Dividing words into syllables - rules, examples, schemes

Dividing words into syllables is performed in accordance with the number of vowels, and also taking into account the peculiarities of the sound composition of words.

This article will focus on the phonetic syllable, how to correctly divide words into syllables. We take into account that the phonetic division into syllables does not always coincide with the spelling of words.

What is a syllable?

In speech, all words of the Russian language consist of minimal sounding units - syllables. Let's define what a phonetic syllable is.

Definition

The phonetic syllable is the smallest unit of speech that consists of a vowel or a vowel with one or more consonants. The syllable is pronounced with one push of exhaled air.

A vowel forms a syllable. A syllable always has only one vowel. It can independently create a phonetic syllable, as well as in combination with one or more consonants. The consonants cluster around a single vowel. In this regard, according to the sound composition, three types of syllables are distinguished:0003

1. The syllable is one vowel sound:

• A-DRES
• and-dollars
O-Strov
• U-Kor
• E-tune
9000 9000 2 . The syllable is vowel with the consonant:
• ONO-TO
• CO-LO-MA

3. The syllable forms a vowel with several consonants:

• beautiful
• stars
• bargain

Open and closed syllables

Syllables are open and closed. In the words of the Russian language, most syllables are open. Open syllables organize all vowels alone or in combination with a consonant sound:

Closed syllables form all consonants at the end of words:

• nail
• cover
• blue
• steam-cart
902

Unpaired voiced consonants [d'], [l], [l'], [m], [m'], [n], [n'], [p], [p'] can form a closed syllable in any phonetic position: at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of words:

• zer-ka-lo
• Bol-tic
• sa-rai-chik
• sa-ra-fan .

How to properly divide words into syllables?

Words are divided into phonetic syllables according to the number of vowels. A word contains as many syllables as it has vowels. One vowel sound surrounded by consonants creates a monosyllabic word that is not divided into syllables:

In order to be able to divide a word into syllables, it must contain at least two vowels that form disyllabic words: -face.

If the sonorant consonant is between two vowels , then it goes to the next syllable:0024 ko-ryst

When dividing into syllables, we take into account that the syllable ends with a vowel, and the group of subsequent noisy consonants, in combination with a sonorant sound or without it, departs at the syllable boundary to the next phonetic syllable:

• bottle
• building.

Only unpaired voiced consonants in the middle of a word can close a syllable:

• Al-Fa-VEVT
• Stroy
• Kvar-Tal
• LAN-DI-SHE
• BU-SSHUM.

If the word has the same consonants, then they begin the following phonetic syllable:

• PRO-gram
Te-NNI-EXIS CRO-SSU-KVVK
• -ra-llel.

This syllable is phonetic and does not coincide with orthographic hyphenation of words with double consonants.

letters “Y”, “B”, “Kommersant” owns a syllable, after which they are written:

• Rei
• Clap-I
• Under- yum.

Let us indicate the order of dividing words into syllables using the following algorithm.

Algorithm for dividing words into syllables

1. read the word;
2. emphasize vowel sounds;
3. count the number of vowels;
4. let's see if the word has double consonants, unpaired voiced consonants, "b" or "b" ;
5. we divide the word after each vowel into syllables, taking into account the indicated features.

Examples

1. nightingale

This word has 4 vowels that form the same number of syllables. A soft dividing sign is written in the middle. We divide the word into four phonetic syllables. We leave a soft sign after the consonant, indicated by the letter "v" :

so-lov-i-ny

In this word, two syllables are open, and the third and fourth syllables close respectively the voiced consonant "v" and the unpaired voiced consonant, indicated by the letter "th" » .

In accordance with this division into syllables, we transfer this word from one line to another in three ways:

2. participation

In this word, we indicate 4 vowel sounds that organize four phonetic syllables:

u-part-e

All syllables are open. The first and last syllable form vowels on their own. The third syllable is a vowel with noisy consonants.

In accordance with this phonetic syllable division, a word cannot be transferred, since one letter, even constituting a syllable, does not remain on the line and is not transferred to the next. Let's attach them to the next and previous syllable and get the correct variant of word transfer by syllables:

participation

Video "Dividing words into syllables"

Dividing into syllables - rules and examples

Syllables are parts into which a word is divided in the process of oral speech. When we pronounce the word it turns out several expiratory pushes of air - this is precisely the pronunciation by syllables: ko-shka. Two push of air during exhalation - two syllables: vo-da. 3 pushes of air - three syllables: na-u-ka.

In a word, there are as many syllables as there are sounds from the voice, that is, vowels: sheet - 1 syllable, no-ra - 2 syllables. A syllable can have a very different number of letters, but one must be a vowel.

A word can have a different number of syllables. There are monosyllabic, two-syllable, three-syllable words and polysyllabic words: leaf (1 syllable), no-ra (two-syllable word), u-e-zjat (three-syllable).

A syllable may consist of one vowel or a combination of a vowel and a consonant: a-ba-zhur. Even one vowel sound is already a syllable. But one consonant is not a syllable. How to divide a word into syllables? Important to understand the main principle: if a syllable includes a vowel and a consonant, then it always begins with a consonant: country.

How to divide a word into syllables when there are consonants

How to divide a word into syllables if there are several consonants in the middle? How to split a word syllables: cat or cat? It is necessary to realize the principle of the so-called greater sonority. He observed in the second case. From consonant to vowel. First comes a dull sound, then a voiced consonant, and in end vowel - shka. The first syllable ends in a vowel (ko). Such syllables called open. We have much more of them than those that end in consonants: a table, a chair (they are called closed syllables).

In the middle of a word, the syllable is usually open, that is, it ends with a vowel sound: country. According to the principle increase in sonority, all consonants depart in most cases to the next syllable: ko-shka.

If several consonants are combined in the middle of a word, then all consonants following vowels, go to the next syllable: o-leak. It can be the same consonants or just combinations of different consonants: o-leak, sha-pka, ko-shka.

Exception to this clause: only syllables in the middle of a word that end in a consonant are end in unpaired consonant voiced sounds (they are called very voiced, sonorous): [th], [p], [p ’], [l], [l '], [m], [m '], [n], [n ']: May-ka, San-ka, man-ka.

If several sounds merge into one sound in a word, then they all go to one syllable: zhu-zhzh (Zh)at, distracted (CA). In these cases, division into syllables and morphemic division for word transfer should not be confused: for example, by syllables we divide o-leak, we divide the same word for transfer like this - from-leak.

Why be able to divide a word into syllables? the only one. Both skills are important: highlighting syllables in a word and the ability to find morphemes (significant parts of a word), because syllables and morphemes in many cases do not match. The syllable is not a prefix or a root, suffix.

The division into syllables occurs when a word is pronounced. And the division of a word into parts is necessary for writing a word, then is for writing letters in prefixes, roots, suffixes.

Isolation of morphemes (prefixes, suffixes, roots) and syllables are two different actions, two different principles, on on the basis of which a competent transfer of the word is carried out.

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