10. Resource Hub for Teaching Multisyllabic Words

Erin Russo: So we've learned how to read two syllable words that have two consonants between the vowels, right? We've learned that we can underline our vowels, and when we see two consonants, we divide between the consonants. So who thinks they can help me use strategies to read this two syllable word? Finley?

Finley: You could underline the 'o' and the 'e'.

Erin Russo: Right. We underline our two vowels. And what do we see between the two vowels. Finley?

Finley: Two 'm's.

Erin Russo: Two 'm's.

Finley: So underline and the ... I mean, we can divide in between the two 'm's.

Erin Russo: You got it. Because that's the rule. We have two consonants. We divide between them and now we can read one syllable at a time. Finley, can you read this two syllable word for us?

Finley: Comment.

Erin Russo: You got it. Comment.

Erin Russo: We've also learned how to read two syllable words that only have one consonant between the two vowels. Can someone remind me how to use strategies to read this two syllable word? Josie?

Josie: You underline the 'u' and the 'e'.

Erin Russo: Right. And what do we see between the 'u' and the 'e', Josie?

Josie: The 'd'.

Erin Russo: The 'd'. Ooh. So where's the first place we should try dividing?

Josie: Between that 'd' and the 'e'.

Erin Russo: Well, that's actually the second place. First, before we divide after the consonant, Josie, we want to try dividing before the consonant. Let's try that. So if I'm going to divide before the consonant, where am I going to divide?

Josie: Between the 'u and the 't'.

Erin Russo: You got it. Josie, can you help us read this word?s

Josie: Student.

Erin Russo: Student. Next we're going to read another two syllable word that has one consonant between the two vowels. Who would like to tell us how to use strategies to read this two syllable word? Blake?

Blake: You underline the 'i' and the 'i'.

Erin Russo: So both 'i's. And what do we see?

Blake: One consonant between.

Erin Russo: So Blake, usually we would divide before the consonant, but if I divide there, this would say fineish. Is fineish a word?

Blake: No.

Erin Russo: No. So where do we have to divide, Blake?

Blake: After the 's'.

Erin Russo: Right. So sometimes with these words we know we have to divide after the consonant. If it doesn't work when we divide before the consonant. So Blake, now we can read this word accurately. What is this word?

Blake: Finish.

Erin Russo: Finish.

[Music]

Xavier: I think, he — he’s kind of bad.

Linda Farrell: Oh. Dog Man is?

Xavier: Yeah — at his job.

Linda Farrell: He sure is. He chews the table leg. Oh my gosh.

Reading expert Linda Farrel is working with Xavier, a third grader at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland. She’ll be helping him learn how to read multi-syllable words.

Xavier: … going to study Flippy’s brain.

Linda Farrell: When we visit classrooms, it’s a big issue: “The kids do well with small words, but they can’t read big words.” So I’ll ask a student to read. And they look at a word and it’s volcanic and they read volcano. Or it’s fanatic and they read fantasy. So they guess the most common word that has that configuration that that word looks like it has. What they don’t know is how to break a word into syllables so that you’re not reading a big word that you have to memorize, but you’re just going, “Oh, there’s a little word, a little word, a little word.

Linda Farrell: I’m gonna have you read some nonsense words. They all have short vowels. So, could you just read these three nonsense words.

Xavier: Nad. Naf. Nef.

Linda Farrell: Good. Alright. What are these three?

Xavier: Zib. Zid. Zash.

Linda Farrell: Your, uh, this is pretty easy, isn’t it. Yeah. This is too easy. We’re done with that one. Okay? Now I’m gonna teach you about reading two-syllable words. This is kinda fun.

Linda Farrell: We started with nonsense words with Xavier because often syllables are nonsense words … that when you combine them they become real words. So teaching nonsense words is not an exercise in futility. It is preparing children to read multi-syllable words.

Ms. Farrell now knows Xavier can read one-syllable words with short vowels. Next she checks to make sure he knows what a syllable is, because breaking long words into syllables is the key to the strategy she’ll be teaching him.

Linda Farrell: I just remembered something. I have to make sure you know what a syllable is. Okay. So look at me. My name is Linda. It has two syllables in it. Lin. Da. Linda. So what’s your name?

Xavier: Xavier.

Linda Farrell: How many syllables in your name?

Xavier: Four.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Let’s stomp them.

Xavier: /Ex/, /ay/, I mean, /ex/, /zay/, /vee/, /er/. Xavier.

Linda Farrell: You got it.

Linda Farrell: How many syllables in computer?

Xavier: Com-pu-ter. Three.

Linda Farrell: Yes. You got it. So you know what a syllable is. Alright. Cause that’s really important if we’re gonna read these big words. So if I look at this word, and I want to know how to read that, the first thing I have to do is figure out how many syllables are in it. And I can do that by figuring out what the vowels are. Do you know what the vowel letters are?

Xavier: ‘A, e, i, o ,u.’

Linda Farrell: You got it. Those are the vowel letters. So here’s what I know. Every syllable has a vowel in it. So in order to figure out how many syllables there are, I have to count the vowels. So can you tell me … how many vowel letters do you see in that word?

Xavier: Two.

Linda Farrell: Yep. Are they together or apart?

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: They are apart. If I have two vowels — letters, and they’re apart, I’m going to have two syllables. So I’m gonna draw two lines right here, and I have to have a vowel letter in every syllable. So can you break that word into two syllables for me?

Linda Farrell: Now this is a nonsense word, so we’re gonna read it. What’s the first syllable?

Xavier: Jod. Pum.

Linda Farrell: What’s the word?

Xavier: Jodpum.

Linda Farrell: So read it again.

Xavier: Jodpum.

Linda Farrell: And the word is …

Xavier: Jodpum.

Linda Farrell: That’s a nonsense word. I just made it up. I literally just made that word up right now. I’ve never even seen that word before. But we now know what to do if we have a word that we don’t know. So let’s try another word.

Xavier: Volcano?

Linda Farrell: Oh! You got the first two syllables — you got the first syllable right. How many vowels do you see?

Xavier: Three.

Linda Farrell: Together or apart.

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Read each syllable.

Xavier: /Vol/, /cay/ …

Linda Farrell: Hmmm. What’s that middle syllable?

Xavier: … /can/, /ic/.

Linda Farrell: Touch each syllable and read it.

Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/ …

Linda Farrell: Mm-hmm.

Xavier: /ks/

Linda Farrell: Wait. Wait. What’s that?

Xavier: /ic/

Linda Farrell: Yeah. Let’s do it again.

Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/. Volcanic.

Linda Farrell: You just read volcanic. So what are the syllables in volcanic?

Xavier: ‘O’ …

Linda Farrell: Those are the vowels. What’s the first syllable?

Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/.

Linda Farrell: I’m gonna ask you to do something. I’m erasing this. Okay. So say volcanic.

Xavier: Volcanic.

Linda Farrell: How many syllables in volcanic?

Xavier: Three.

Linda Farrell: Okay. I would like you to please see if you can spell each syllable in volcanic. So draw three lines right up here.

Linda Farrell: Do you think you can spell volcanic? What’s the first syllable?

Linda Farrell: What’s that syllable? What’d you just spell?

Xavier: /Vol/.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Next one.

Linda Farrell: Now write the whole word.

Linda Farrell: Oh my gosh. You just spelled volcanic. You couldn’t even read it and now you can spell it. That is pretty good. Do you want me to see if I can get a really hard one for you?

Linda Farrell: In teaching Xavier word attack skills, it’s very important that we choose words with short vowels that have only one vowel all by itself. So you’ll see we’re not going to have words with ‘silent e,’ we’re not going to have words with vowel teams. So we need two questions that we can ask Xavier that can help him break a big word into syllables so that all it is is little small words that he has to put together to read a big word. The two questions are … how many vowels do you see? Are they together or apart? And what we teach him is that … if you see three vowels and they’re apart, you’re going to have three syllables, because every syllable has a vowel. And then we teach him to draw a line for each syllable, write each syllable on a line, and then read each little word and then put them together.

Linda Farrell: Let’s see if we can try this one.

Linda Farrell: How many vowels did you see?

Xavier: Three.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Could you underline them please?

Xavier: I mean four.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Four vowels. Are they together or apart?

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: So how many syllables?

Xavier: Four.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Could you move that ‘n’ over there? Okay.

Linda Farrell: Okay. So read each syllable.

Xavier: /Con/, /tic/ …

Linda Farrell: What’s that?

Xavier: /ti/, /tin/

Linda Farrell: What’s this?

Xavier: /ti/

Linda Farrell: /t/, /i/. What is it?

Xavier: /ti/

Linda Farrell: Okay. So it’s …

Xavier: /Con/, /ti/, /nin/, /tul/. Continental.

Linda Farrell: You just read continental. Are you ready for another one?

Xavier: Mm-hmm.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Here we go. Let’s try this one.

Linda Farrell: How many vowels do you see?

Xavier: /o/ and /i/, /e/

Linda Farrell: Okay. So how many? You can underline them if you want.

Linda Farrell: Why don’t you start here and go this way. Yeah.

Linda Farrell: Okay. So how many?

Xavier: Four.

Linda Farrell: Together or apart?

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Do you wanna try to read it without breaking it into syllables? Try it.

Xavier: Accosh — accomplishment.

Linda Farrell: What was the word?

Xavier: Accosh — accomplishment.

Linda Farrell: It’s accomplishment. You are right.

As Xavier grasps the strategy, you can see him thinking through the two questions: How many vowels? Are the vowels together or apart? And he’s able to read big words without writing out the syllables.

Xavier: Wil-ming-ton.

Linda Farrell: What’s the word?

Xavier: Wilmington.

Linda Farrell: Wilmington! It’s the name of a city …

Linda Farrell: Xavier does a great job of learning how to attack a word. After this lesson he has a strategy to help him break words into syllables and read them. He will need lots of lessons. We start with short vowels, then we move to ‘silent e,’ then we move to vowel teams. So it’s explicit and it’s systematic when we’re teaching him this. Xavier responded beautifully to reading these long words.

[Music]

Linda Farrell: We’re gonna do one more. It is …

Xavier: Electric — cal. Electrical.

Linda Farrell: You got it! That was a good one to end on. High five! Yes!

[Music]

We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.

Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.

We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.

Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

For more information about teaching reading, please visit

www.ReadingRockets.org (opens in a new window) (opens in a new window) (opens in new window)

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

DeAngela Huggins: All right, so we're going to be working with words that have more than one syllable today.

Narrator: In today's lesson, DeAngela Huggins is dividing syllables with her first graders at Burgess-Peterson Academy, or as she calls it, chopping words.

DeAngela Huggins: So we're going to be chopping words today. Big words or words that are multisyllable words. Everyone say multisyllable.

Students: Multisyllable.

DeAngela Huggins: And what that means is, is the word has more than one syllable. So let's review. We're going to review how to chop big words, okay? I have a word. And remember, one thing you have to promise me is that you won't say the word until we're all ready. Even if you know it. Where can you say it?

Students: In your brain.

DeAngela Huggins: In your brain. In your brain.

Narrator: Long words can sometimes trip up young readers. Syllable division helps by breaking these big words into smaller chunks, making reading and spelling easier.

DeAngela Huggins: It's because if we come to a word that has more than one syllable in a book that we're reading, this will actually help us to be able to read the words. So when we chop big words, the first thing I need to look for are my vowels. So I'm going to underline my vowels in my word. And what are my vowels in my word?

Narrator: 'U' and 'i'.

DeAngela Huggins: I'm going to underline my 'u' and my 'i'. Why don't you underline yours in your word too. And because it's a vowel, we're going to label them with a ...

Students: 'V'.

DeAngela Huggins: We're going to label them with a 'v'. All right? Now we're going to label our consonants. And we don't want to label all of the consonants in the word. We just want to label the consonants that are ...

Students: in between the vowels.

DeAngela Huggins: In between our vowels. So Georgia, what are our two consonants in between our vowels?

Georgia: 'M' and 'm'.

DeAngela Huggins: 'M' and 'm'. And so because they're consonants, we're going to label them with the letter. What? Jackson?

Jackson: We're going to label them with the letter 'c'.

DeAngela Huggins: We're going to label them with a 'c'. So everyone that's label our consonants with the letter 'c'. Oh, I have two 'c's in the middle. Do you want to know what I like to call those? I call 'em chocolate chips.

Students: Chocolate chips.

DeAngela Huggins: Very good. And because of chocolate chips, when I chop my word, I'm going to always chop between my chocolate chips, and that's one way to help me.

So everyone, let's make our biggest chop. And let's say hi-ya. So let's chop our word. I'm going to make mine..

Students: Chocolate chip.

DeAngela Huggins: Very good. Chocolate chip. Hi-ya. So everyone has our word. So guess what we just did?

Student: We made two syllables.

DeAngela Huggins: Boom. We made two syllables. We made our word into two syllables. So now that big word is no longer such a scary word anymore because I made it into smaller parts. So now I have to figure out what my vowel is saying. So let's take a look at our first syllable and put your finger on the vowel.

The first syllable. All right, very good. And what's that? vowel?

Student: 'U'.

DeAngela Huggins: It's a U. Now look next door to the vowel. Is there something there?

Student: Yes.

DeAngela Huggins: What is it? So is that an open or is that first syllable closed?

Students: Closed.

DeAngela Huggins: It is going to be closed. So I'm going to mark it with a 'c', but I also want to know what sound that is. How do we mark closed syllables? We mark 'em with something, Kind of looks like a little smiley face.

Student: A breve.

DeAngela Huggins: A breve. So I'm going to mark. So everyone, let's mark your vowel. Let's mark it with a breve. And that lets me know that it is a short sound. And then we're going to write our 'c', because I know that first syllable is what kind of syllable?

Student: Closed.

DeAngela Huggins: Very good that it is a closed syllable. So now guess what?

I can read my first syllable. So what is my first syllable?

Student: Sum.

DeAngela Huggins: Sum. Very good. Now let's do the same thing with that second syllable. What's our vowel?

Students: 'i'.

DeAngela Huggins: 'i'. Now look right next door to the 'i'.

Students: 'T'.

DeAngela Huggins: Is it open or closed?

Students: Closed.

DeAngela Huggins: It is closed. So is that going to be short or long sound?

Students: Short.

DeAngela Huggins: All right. So Leona, what am I going to mark my vowel with to show that it's short?

Leona: A breve.

DeAngela Huggins: Very good. I'm going to mark it with a breve. And then I'm also going to label it with a 'c'.

Students: 'C'.

DeAngela Huggins: Very good. Now, what is our second syllable?

Students: Mit.

DeAngela Huggins: Alright, so now we're going to put those two syllables together to read this big word. So the first syllable is ...

Students: 'sum'.

DeAngela Huggins: Second syllable is ...

Students: 'mit'.

DeAngela Huggins: Now let's put it together.

Students: Summit.

DeAngela Huggins: Say it again.

Students: Summit.

DeAngela Huggins: One more time.

Students: Summit.

DeAngela Huggins: "Summit" Leona is like the top of a hill or a peak. So everyone show me a summit. So a summit is a top of a hill. Alright, so what we just did was we took one of those big words that sometimes can make us a little bit hesitant when we're getting ready to read and we broke it into smaller parts to make it easier for us to put together. So you guys want to do some more words?

Students: Yeah.

DeAngela Huggins: All right.

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. Special thanks to Burgess-Peterson Academy and Atlanta Public Schools. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUteaching. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington D.C., the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.

DeAngela Huggins: This is Reading Universe.