Syllable Types: A Quick Introduction

There are six syllable types that we explicitly teach students: closed, open, magic ‘e’, vowel teams, r-controlled, and consonant ‘-le’. Knowing these syllable types helps students figure out how to pronounce a vowel when they are decoding an unfamiliar word and how to spell words too!

1. Closed Syllables

A closed syllable, the most common syllable type, is a syllable with one vowel letter followed by one or more consonants. The vowel will be short.

As you know, vowels have short sounds and long sounds. Vowels say their short sounds when they are closed in by — or followed by — a consonant. If a vowel has a consonant after it, we call that a closed syllable. You can think about it like this: the consonant is protecting the vowel so it can say its short sound.

Closed syllables are also found in multisyllabic words like nap-kin and sun-set. 

We’ll revisit closed syllables in the Add in Syllable Work lesson later in the course. 

2. Open Syllables

Once students know how to read closed syllables, we can begin to teach them about open syllables. 

Open syllables end with a single vowel, and the vowel says its long sound — as in the words me, she, and go. The open-syllable pattern will be your students' first experience decoding long vowel sounds.

3. Magic 'e'

The magic 'e', also known as the silent 'e', is an important phonics pattern in which the middle vowel says its long sound — like cake, home, kite, scene, cube, and tune. 

Magic 'e' is also a syllable type and is most often found at the end of words — like athlete, complete, and invade.

Practice each magic 'e' sound with the keywords, saying:

‘a’, consonant, ‘e’, cake, /ā/

‘o’, consonant, ‘e’, home, /ō/

‘i’, consonant, ‘e’, kite, /ī/

‘e’, consonant, ‘e’, eve, /ē/

‘u’, consonant, ‘e’, cube, /ū/

‘u’, consonant, ‘e’, tune, /oo/

4. R-Controlled 

The r-controlled pattern is a vowel pattern and a syllable type. The r-controlled vowels are 'ar', 'or', 'er', 'ir', and 'ur' and are in words like chart, sport, her, bird, and spur. 

In multisyllabic words, an r-controlled vowel can appear in the first syllable like in target, in the second syllable like in number, and in both syllables like in partner.

Practice each r-controlled vowel sound with the keywords and motions, saying:

/ar/, arm

/er/, bird

/or/, horn

5. Vowel Teams and Dipthongs

Vowel teams are a phonics spelling pattern in which two vowels are next to each other and the vowels produce one sound together — similar to the consonant digraph pattern, but with vowels instead!  

Vowel teams and diphthongs include 'ai', 'ay', 'ee', 'ea', 'oa', 'oi', 'oy', 'oo', 'ou', 'ow', 'aw', and 'au.'

We often teach vowel teams and diphthongs in pairs, such as ‘ai’ and ‘ay’ as ways to spell the long ‘a’. Vowel teams are also a syllable type and include multisyllable words like oyster and between. 

Here are common vowel teams with word examples that you may recognize. Read out loud the following spelling, keyword, and phoneme.

• 'ai', rain, /ā/
• 'ay', hay, /ā/
• 'ee', tree, /ē/
• 'ea', each, /ē/
• 'oi', boil, /oi/
• 'oy', toy, /oi/
• 'ou', ouch, /ow/
• 'ow', snow, /ō/
• 'ow', cow, /ow/
• 'igh', light, /ī/
• 'oa', boat, /ō/
• 'oo', broom, /o͞o/
• 'oo', book, /o͝o/
• 'au', August, /aw/
• 'aw', saw, /aw/

Here are all of the vowel phonemes and common spellings (opens in new window). And for younger children, the Vowel Valley (opens in new window)offers helpful illustration for alternate vowel sounds for the same spelling like cow and tow.

6. Consonant '-le'

Consonant ‘-le’ is a syllable that falls at the end of a multisyllable word and makes a subtle /ul/ sound, as in puddle or single. 

Here are some examples of e consonant '-le' syllables: 

• '-ble'
• '-dle'
• '-fle'
• '-gle'
• '-ple'
• '-tle'
• '-zle' 

Once your students know and can recognize the consonant ‘-le’ pattern, they’ll know to make a subtle /ul/ sound when they see it at the end of a word like maple or puzzle.

Congratulations on getting through this important part of the course. Now it’s time to put this good learning to work with a Word Chaining game!