How to Teach a Phonics Lesson: Syllable Work

Carla Stanford: Let's talk about syllable work. Why do we do syllable work as part of our phonics lesson? We want to teach our kids how to look at a really large word, a big word, and be able to divide the word, and then from there, decide the syllable type or what the vowel is doing. So this part of the lesson is all about you giving them an opportunity to practice. You can use real words and you can also use nonsense words. So when they're out in their text and they come across a big word, they will not be stopped. They have the tools to tackle that word, to know how to divide it, and then to know how to think about those vowels, to unlock the sound, to then read the word, to get to the meaning and to move on with their reading comprehension in the text.

So the whole point of syllable work is so that kids have the tools to unlock unfamiliar words. Just a reminder, when you're selecting words for this part of the lesson, be sure the word you select contain the syllable types that you've taught your children so that they have access to the knowledge to move forward. So the way it works is you'll say a word and you'll ask your kids to maybe raise their right hand and say, I will not blurt. And that means you're asking them not to blurt out the word that you're having them write. Because this work is all about reading the word. So if they blurt out the word, then the work is done. So we're going to start with a single syllable here just to practice with one syllable. You could do this work with your kids. All right? Draw a line on your paper or go to the syllable work part of your dictation paper here. Get ready. I want you to write Z-O-C-K. Excellent. Does everyone have Z-O-C-K on their paper? Thumbs up. All right, get ready. I'm going to talk you through the steps. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to look all the way through your word and you're going to underline your vowel. You can mark it 'v' for vowel, and then I want you to look next door. When you look next door, do you see that the vowel is closed in? And your kids would say, yes, it's closed in. If the vowel is closed in, then we know that the vowel is going to say its short sound. So you can mark it with the short breve symbol. Alright, let's read it together. Now that we've unlocked our vowel, we know this is a closed syllable. Tappers up, let's tap. /z/, /ŏ/, /k/. Zock. Excellent. Is zock a real word? No. And your kids would know that it is not a real word. It's a nonsense word. A lot of times we will use nonsense words during this time to give kids practice of how they can unlock the vowel in a single syllable word all by themselves. Now, let's move on to the next part that you could do.

You could give them a multi-syllabic word. You go through the same routines. You spell the word out loud. They don't blurt, they write it on their paper. So let's do one together. We're going to spell together N-A-P. Is everyone good? K-I-N. Thumbs up when you have it on your paper. You make sure everyone has it so everyone can do the work with you. And you guide your students through. First step, let's look all the way through our word and let's underline our vowels. And they'll usually call it out. 'A'! Excellent. Keep going. Do you see another vowel? Yes. 'I'. Excellent. You can label them 'v' for vowel. So we have our two vowels. Now we're going to look in between. So everyone say, look in between. We'll touch our vowels. We'll look in between. And we see that we have two consonants. When we have a V-C-C-V word that stands for vowel, consonant, consonant, vowel, we know we can chop or divide right in between the two 'c's. And sometimes we like to call those chocolate chips. We divide in between the two 'c's or the chocolate chips. So we divide here, and now we've divided our word into two syllables, and now we know exactly what to do. You look at the first syllable, we touch our vowel, we look next door. When we look next door, what do we see? A consonant. A consonant is closing in the vowel. If the consonant is closed in, what is the vowel going to say? It's going to say it's short sound.

So we can mark a breve, the symbol. So we have our first syllable. We can tap and read /n/, /ă/, /p/. Nap. Excellent. Second syllable, touch your vowel. Look next door. And of course your kids are going to be so excited. They're going to look next door. They're going to see that it's closed. And they're going to say, it says, /ĭ/. It's a short sound. If so, they can mark it with a breve. They can tap /k/, /ĭ/, /n/. Kin. And you say, now let's read both syllables together. You're ready. "Nap ... kin." Let's do it again. "Nap ... kin." Altogether. "Nap .. kin." Excellent. One more time. Napkin. And so you have taught them and walked them through the process of looking at a multisyllabic word, dividing it, deciding what the vowel is doing to can unlock it to read the word. A napkin. I pack a napkin in my lunch so I can clean up after I eat. Napkin.

We always are going to add in our meaning. This work is one part of the phonics lesson, and you have to decide within your day and within your week when you can do this work, when your kids need practice with it. Giving them opportunities within the lesson is important, but you can shift your lesson around and add this in on days as needed, or take it away on days that you have more work happening in other parts of your lesson. It's really a decision that you can make so that your kids have an opportunity to practice

Narrator: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the AFT; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; and anonymous donors.