9. What the Research Says About Multisyllabic Words

This Skill Explainer gives you the how and what for teaching students to read multisyllabic words. The research explains why you are teaching using the structured literacy approach.

Decades of research have shown that teaching phonics skills systematically and explicitly helps students become stronger readers. This kind of instruction, known as the structured literacy approach, includes introducing sound-letter correspondences and spelling patterns (including syllable patterns) in a planned, sequential way.

The demands of texts increase throughout elementary school, with multisyllabic words accounting for 48% of words in first-grade texts and 65% of words in third-grade (Hiebert, 2022; Kearns & Hiebert, 2022; Kearns & Whaley, 2018).

Students need ample time to practice decoding multisyllabic words, using efficient strategies that are easy for students to learn and remember, especially students with dyslexia (Guskey, 2007; Kearns & Whaley, 2018).

The VCCV syllable division pattern has been shown to be consistent with having the first syllable be a closed syllable about 70% of the time, 79% for two-syllable words. The VCV pattern, dividing before the consonant making the first vowel sound long, is less consistent, approximately 47% for two-syllable words (Kearns, 2020).

Additional strategies for decoding multisyllabic words include:

• Every syllable has at least one vowel (ESHALOV) (O'Connor et al., 2015)
• BEST (Benedict et al., 2013)
• Peeling off (Lovett et al., 2000)

References

Benedict, A. E., Park, Y., Brownell, M. T., Lauterbach, A. A., & Kiely, M. T. (2013). Using lesson study to align elementary literacy instruction within the RTI framework. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 45(5), 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/004005991304500503 (opens in new window) 

Guskey, T. R. (2007). Closing achievement gaps: Revisiting Benjamin S. Bloom's "Learning for Mastery." Journal of Advanced Academics, 19, 8–31. https://doi.org/10.4219/jaa-2007-704 (opens in new window) 

Hiebert, E. H. (2022). When students perform at the below basic level on the NAEP: What does it mean and what can educators do? The Reading Teacher, 75(5), 631–639. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2082 (opens in new window)  

Kearns, D. M. (2020). Does English have useful syllable division patterns? Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1). https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.342 (opens in new window)

Kearns, D. M., & Hiebert, E. H. (2022). The word complexity of primary‐level texts: Differences between first and third grade in widely used curricula. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(1), 255–285. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.429 (opens in new window) 

Kearns, D. M., & Whaley, V. M. (2018). Helping students with dyslexia read long words: Using syllables and morphemes. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 51(3), 212–225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059918810010 (opens in new window)  

Lovett, M. W., Lacerenza, L., Borden, S. L., Frijters, J. C., Steinbach, K. A., & De Palma, M. (2000). Components of effective remediation for developmental reading disabilities: Combining phonological and strategy-based instruction to improve outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 263−283. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.2.263 (opens in new window) 

O'Connor, R. E., Beach, K. D., Sanchez, V. M., Bocian, K. M., & Flynn, L. J. (2015). Building BRIDGES: A design experiment to improve reading and United States history knowledge of poor readers in eighth grade. Exceptional Children, 81, 399–425. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014402914563706 (opens in new window)