Syllables for first grade

Tips for Teaching Syllables - Lucky Little Learners

Written by: Jess Dalrymple

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There’s no doubt about it – teaching syllables is an important part of reading instruction. After all, this skill shows up in primary grade level standards – regardless of where you teach. But how do you get your students to understand what syllables are, and what are the best ways to practice syllabication once it is introduced?

First, let’s dive into why it’s a benefit to young readers to understand syllables. From there, we will offer some suggestions for strategies and resources teachers can use to make teaching syllables a breeze!

Why do kids need to understand syllables?

When younger kids can hear the different sounds and syllables in words, they will have the foundation to be able to chunk apart and blend together sounds and word parts as beginning readers.

As children progress through grade levels, having a strong understanding of how words are broken into syllables can help them decode, pronounce, and spell longer words. In fact, did you know that over 80% of English words have two or more syllables! So, having a strategy for how to chunk multisyllabic words into single syllables is much more efficient than trying to sound out a long string of letters.  

How to Teach Syllables

Download Under Construction HERE

Explain what syllables are

Basically, a syllable is a single vowel sound in a word. This can be confusing for kids because they will want to count the number of vowels they see in a written word. This will take some practice, but it is important to help kids understand that syllables are not single vowels; they are single vowel sounds. Try demonstrating this with a word like “beautiful”. There are five vowels, but when you listen closely, there are three vowel sounds.

1. beau
2. ti
3. ful

Another way to explain is by calling syllables “beats” in words. Try clapping the syllables in students’ names and in names of objects around the classroom. Have students join in as they get more comfortable! Take this one step further and sort the people and objects into groups by the number of syllables.

One more tip: Try putting your hand under your chin to count the number of syllables in words. The number of times your chin drops when you’re saying a word is the number of syllables the word has.

Try it! How many times does your chin touch your hand when you say the word ‘banana’? Your chin should have dropped three times – ‘ba-na-na’. This works because your mouth has to change positions to form a new vowel sound (aka syllable), causing your chin to drop.

Finally, kids will love this video explaining syllables:

Examples of Syllables

• ‘dog’ – one syllable
• ‘pen-cil’ – two syllables
• ‘bi-cy-cle’ – three syllables
• ‘cal-cu-la-tor’ – four syllables
• ‘hip-popot-a-mus – five syllables

Here’s a free site called “How Many Syllables” where you can type a word and it will tell you how many syllables, how to divide the word into syllables, and what the primary and secondary syllables are (to help with pronunciation).

4 Strategies for Teaching Syllables

1- Count Syllables

Practicing syllable counting can be simple! Call out the number of syllables in names when dismissing kids to line up for lunch, “If your first name has three syllables, line up.” Or, send kids to their literacy center by telling them to hop for each syllable in their name. “Jess-i-ca, syllable hop on over to the writing center”.

2- Teach Younger Students to Segment by Syllables

When you notice a student struggling to read a longer word, cover up all but the first syllable. Once they sound out the first syllable, reveal the next syllable to sound out, then have them put the two syllables together. Learn more about reading strategies to use with young readers.

3-

1. Look at the word. Mark the vowels.
2. Determine which syllable division rule (VC/CV, V/CV, VC/V, or V/V) applies.
3. Cut or mark the word accordingly.
4. Read the word.

4- Practice Syllables With Poetry

Haikus

Haikus are fun to write! Kids can get creative and write about any topic, but the poem must be three lines long:

• 1st line – 5 syllables
• 2nd line – 7 syllables
• 3rd line – 5 syllables

Limericks

Limericks are also a form of poetry that requires syllable counting!

• They are five lines long.
• Lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme with one another.
• Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other.
• They have a distinctive rhythm (based on number of syllables)
• They are usually funny.

This site has excellent directions for how to write a limerick.

Resources for Teaching Syllables

Lucky Little Learners has something for everyone when it comes to supporting the teaching of syllables in K-2 classrooms! Our syllables resources are organized by grade level below.

Kindergarten & 1st Grade Syllable Resources

Kindergarten ELA Toothy

• syllable counting: 1-4 syllable words

Download Syllable Counting Toothy HERE

1st & 2nd Grade Phonics Toothy

• Practice with spelling patterns to master decoding by syllables

 Download 1st & 2nd Grade Syllables Toothy HERE

P

It’s the Toothy® you know and love, with a twist! This phonological awareness resource includes 45 sets of phonological and phonemic awareness skills. It includes early, basic, and advanced phonological awareness activity sets.  Toothy® task kits are highly engaging task card games that allow students to practice skills by answering questions in a fun, motivating way.

Download Phonological Awareness Toothy HERE

2nd Grade Syllable Resources

Daily review all year with all essential 2nd grade phonics skills, including syllables!

• CVC Syllables
• CV Syllables
• CVCe Syllables
• CVVC Syllables
• R-Controlled Syllables
• C + le Syllables
• CV Two Syllables
• CVCe Two Syllables
• CVVC Two Syllables
• Multisyllabic Words

Download Phonics Day by Day HERE

Multisyllabic Words Toothy Pack

Kids get to play the Toothy game while focusing on syllable types and decoding multisyllabic words:

• Counting Syllables
• Closed Syllables / CVC
• Multisyllabic CVCe Words
• Open Syllables
• Two-Syllable Long Vowel Words
• Final Stable Syllables

Download MultiSyllabic Words Toothy HERE

Phonics Centers for 2nd Grade & 1st & 2nd Grade Phonics Toothy

Students get tons of practice with spelling patterns to master decoding by syllables with these resources.

Download Phonics Centers HERE

Download Phonics Toothy HERE

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How to Teach Open Syllables in a First Grade Classroom -

Teaching open syllables to your students can help them decode and write a large number of words. Single syllable open syllable words are some of the most common words used in the English language which means they are very important to teach young students. Here is how you can teach open syllables to your first grade, second grade, or kindergarten students.

What do students need to know before you teach open syllables?

If you’d like a complete breakdown of syllable types, you can find that in this post here.

Strong Understanding of Short Vowel Sounds and Consonants

Before you teach open syllables, your students need a solid understanding of short vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Since long vowels “say their name” or make the same sound as their name, it’s wise to teach the short vowel sounds first since they are the more common form of each vowel. It’s also important for students to understand the difference between vowels and consonants.

Understand Closed Syllables

Before we begin to learn about open syllables, it’s important that you first teach closed syllables. You can read how to teach closed syllables here. Closed syllables make up about 50% of the syllables in the English language and also use the short vowel sounds which means you should teach them first. Once students have a solid understanding of closed syllables though, it’s the perfect time to introduce open syllables. Once students know both open and closed syllables, they will have the tools to read about 75% of all syllables in the English language!

Introduce to the Idea of Long Vowel Sounds

Before diving right into open syllables, I like to introduce the idea of long vowel sounds to prepare my students to understand open syllables. We learn that vowels all have a short vowel sound and a long vowel sound. I tell my students that long vowels say their name since this is an easy way to remember the long vowel sounds. We will orally listen to, say, and segment words with long vowel sounds. In this stage, it’s not important if it’s an open syllable or a vowel team as it’s an oral activity.

Why not memorize?

Before I get into how I teach open syllables, I want to say one more thing about how I don’t teach open syllables or any letter sound combination. It might be tempting to just have students memorize lists of words. After all, that’s probably what you did when you were in school. However, the science shows us that this is not an effective or brain friendly method. If I memorize the words so and me, I know how to read two words. However, if I learn that open syllable words end in a single vowel and make a long vowel sound, with practice, I will be able to read any words that fit this predictable pattern. So, the moral is that spending the time to teach syllable types can and will have a big pay off in the end!

How to Teach Open Syllables in First Grade

I teach open syllables in a very similar way to how I teach closed syllables because consistency and repetition pays off! First we review closed syllables. I’ll write words on the board that can easily be turned into open syllables such as wed, shed, hit, and got. We review that closed syllables have a single vowel and end in a consonant or series of consonants. Then I ask students to think about the word closed syllable. I ask what might another syllable type be? They normally come up with open on their own.

Next to the closed syllable examples, I write the word again without the ending consonant: we next to wed, she next to shed, hi next to hit. We talk about how the syllable ends in a single vowel. At least a one or two students typically recognizes a word or two, and I ask them to read it out loud.

We listen to the difference between the words- example wed and we. I ask them to tell me what sound each vowel is making. They already know that e is making the short /e/ sound. They then notice that the e in we is saying it’s own name. I remind them that this is the long e sound.

We take a look at the word again, and I remind them that this is called an open syllable. Why might it be called an open syllable? We realize it’s because it ends in a vowel which means there’s no consonant closing it in. So, the vowel is long.

I show them the open syllable poster with a house with an open door. Just like with closed syllables, I use a hand motion to help them recall open syllables. We put our hands in front of our faces, and then move them to the sides and say “open syllable ends in a single vowel and makes a long vowel sound”.

From here we’ll practice reading open syllable words together. I start with single syllable open syllable words. There are so many important one syllable words in this pattern that make up some of the most frequently used words! These words, according to Oxford Dictionary, rank in the top 100 used words: be, I, he, by, we, she, my, go, so, me, no. If we think about most decodable texts and early reading material, children need to know at least some of these words to be able to read them. It’s very hard to form sentences without using any of these words. So, teaching open syllables is time well spent!

Again, if we teach this spelling pattern, students can read many open syllable words. If we only taught them to memorize me, go, and I, then they can only read me, go, and I.

After we’ve read some words together, we will complete a journal entry to record our learning. I find this very helpful to have the students create the visual in the moment. It also allows them to go back and refer to it later on. I normally do the journal the next day after we’ve reviewed open syllables and read some open syllable words together. It’s better to spread the learning over a few days to ensure that it sticks.

After completing their journal, our work with open and closed syllables isn’t done. We will continue to work with words with both syllable types in many ways. We will map new words and determine if they are open or closed syllables. We’ll also talk about variations such as how the is an open syllable word, but the e is not pronounced with a long e sound due to lazy pronunciation over time. I’ll even explain the schwa sound a bit (but that’s another topic for another blog post).

As we’re writing in our journals or reading together, we’ll point out open syllable words or closed syllable words. Using these skills in other contexts will help to solidify the understanding.

I also really enjoy having students sort open and closed syllables. This is because it helps their brains categorize and sort words as well. We will do this both together and also students practice this independently.

The bottom line is that my student’s reading and writing improves immediately and for the long term as they learn and understand open syllables.

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Dividing words into syllables - rules (grade 1)

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When studying phonetics, schoolchildren, starting from grade 1, not only characterize sounds, but also divide words into syllables. Dividing words into syllables is somewhat difficult, and now we will find out how to cope with the task without errors.

The material was prepared jointly with the teacher of the highest category Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.

Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.

What is a syllable

A syllable is an element of a word that we pronounce on one push of air.

The vowel is the syllabic sound in Russian. That is, the syllable must necessarily have a vowel sound, it forms the basis.

Sometimes, if a word contains three or four consonants side by side and among them there is a sonorant [p] or [l], it takes on a syllable-forming function: Alexander, meaning. Then we pronounce the word with a slight overtone near the syllabic consonant. But at school, such a syllable is not accepted.

In addition to the vowel, consonants may appear in the syllable, but they may not be: o-sen .

Syllables are open (ending in a vowel) and closed (ending in a consonant).

Once in Russian there were only open syllables; in the process of language development, a number of vowels disappeared, the number of syllables decreased and some of them became closed.

How to divide into syllables

There are two phonological schools: Moscow and Leningrad. They have different rules for dividing words into syllables. Most often, school textbooks use the system proposed by R. I. Avanesov (Moscow Phonological School). From his point of view, the syllable division takes place in the place of the greatest difference in sonority. This means that open syllables predominate because the vowel is much more sonorous than almost any consonant. Example : ko-hundred-chka, Lu-dmi-la, simple .

However, if a vowel is followed by a sonorant one (l, m, n, p, d), followed by a noisy one, then the difference in sonority between sonorant and noisy is greater than between the vowel and sonorant, and then the syllable division passes between sonorant and noisy: space .

Does the division of words into syllables and division for hyphenation coincide?

The division of a word into syllables is related to the phonetic (sound) analysis of the word. We divide the word for transfer, taking into account the division into syllables, but still according to morphemes. That is, the transfer, if possible, passes along the border of morphemes.

Let's say if the word has a double consonant (laugh) , when divided into syllables, the double consonant always goes into the next syllable (ra-ss-me-s) , when transferring, it is supposed to leave one letter on one line, and transfer the other (transfer division: ras-laugh ). Most often, the word is carried over by syllables, but there are exceptions. The rule that a word is hyphenated means that you cannot hyphenate a part of a word that does not contain vowels.

What have we learned?

When dividing a word into syllables, one should be guided by the concept of sonority and draw a syllable boundary between maximally and minimally sonorous sounds. The division into syllables and division into hyphenation often do not match.

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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-TUD

00 2 . The syllable is vowel with the consonant:

• ONO-TO
• CO-LO-MA
• SO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-RO-ROS red
• 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 combined with consonant sound:

• Oh-kun
• A-IR
• BOLO
• ANOTHER-KNO

closed syllables form all consonants at the end of the words:

• Nail
• COV

• 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

  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:0079 Waltz

• BROD

To be divided into syllables, it should have at least two vowels that form two-syllable words:

• Yi-Zhik
• D-MIK
• sa-lat
• rabbit

EVOH

• CU-LOD
• COMMUNITURE
• COMP (-t sounds like [ CD ])