4. Videos: See Multisyllabic Words in the Classroom

Liz Quezada: All right, boys and girls, I'm going to say a word. You're going to say the word and break it into two syllables, and then we'll say the word again. So we're going to go word, first syllable, second syllable, word. Ready?

Students: Yes.

Liz Quezada: Say apple.

Students: Apple.

Liz Quezada: Do the first syllable.

Students and Liz Quezada: ap-, -ple ... apple.

Liz Quezada: Say turtle.

Students: Turtle.

Liz Quezada: Ready?

Students and Liz Quezada: tur-, -tle ... turtle.

Liz Quezada: Say staple.

Students:

Staple ... sta-, -ple ... staple.

Liz Quezada:

Say fable.

Students:

Fable.

Liz Quezada:

Syllables ...

Students and Liz Quezada:

fa-, -ble ... fable.

Liz Quezada:

Very good.

Narrator:

For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to La Verne Heights Elementary School, Bonita Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and two anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, DC, the Barksdale Reading Institute and First Book.

Liz Quezada: This is Reading Universe.

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

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