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All About Teaching Reading & Writing
Taxonomy
Skill Explainer

10. Resource Hub: Teaching Closed Syllables

Closed Syllables Skill Explainer

The Simple View of Reading

Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Assessment

The process of measuring students' progress and providing information to help guide instruction

(active)
Word Recognition

The ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it

Phonological Awareness

A group of skills that enable you to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words

Articulation

Syllables

Onset-Rime

Phonemic Awareness

(active)
Phonics

A method for teaching children the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters so they can learn to decode and encode

Sound-Letter Correspondence

(active)Phonics Patterns

Common letter combinations found in words.

Short Vowels Skill Explainer
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
Blends Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer

Coming soon.

    Magic 'e' Skill Explainer
    Soft 'c' and Soft 'g' Skill Explainer

    Coming soon.

      R-Controlled Vowels Skill Explainer

      Coming soon.

        Vowel Teams and Dipthongs Skill Explainer

        Coming soon.

          '-tch' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          '-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer

          Coming soon.

            Consonant '-le' Skill Explainer

            Coming soon.

              Schwa Skill Explainer

              Coming soon.

                Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

                High-frequency words that have a part of their spelling that has to be memorized

                Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

                Multisyllable Words

                Words that have more than one word part

                Prefixes

                How to add meaningful beginnings to words

                Suffixes

                How to add meaningful endings to words

                Language Comprehension

                The ability to understand the meaning of spoken words

                Reading Comprehension

                The ability to understand the meaning of printed text

                Text Considerations

                Characteristics of a text that impact the ease or difficulty of comprehension.

                Strategies and Activities

                How a reader approaches a specific text, depending on their purpose for reading

                Reader’s Skill and Knowledge

                The skills and knowledge a reader brings to the reading task that are necessary for comprehension

                Sociocultural Context

                Elements in a classroom that affect how well a child learns to read

                Fluency

                The ability to read accurately with automaticity and expression

                Fluency: Accuracy, then Automaticity

                Reading or decoding words correctly (accuracy) and reading at an appropriate rate (automaticity)

                Accuracy, then Automaticity Skill Explainer

                Coming soon.

                  Fluency: Expressive Text Reading

                  Reading characterized by accuracy with automaticity and expression

                  Expressive Text Reading Skill Explainer

                  Coming soon.

                    Writing

                    The act of putting thoughts into print using transcription and composition skills

                    Features of Structured Literacy

                    A systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading based on research

                    Here are quick links to all of the teaching resources in this skill explainer. Please use them freely and share them with your colleagues.

                    Videos 

                    Video thumbnail for Warming Up with Closed Syllables
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                    DeAngela Huggins: Okay, guys. So we're going to get ready to start our lesson today.

                    Narrator: Reading Specialist DeAngela Huggins is about to teach a phonics lesson about multi-syllable words. So, for the warmup, she's using flashcards with closed syllables.

                    DeAngela Huggins: So we're going to be working with words that have more than one syllable today. So I thought it'd be really cool that if we start with our warmup with some syllables. We're going to read that syllable. So, remember, these aren't actually words ... these are just what?

                    Students: Syllables ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: So we know a syllable is a part of a word that has a vowel sound. So you ready? Alright, is it open or closed?

                    Students: Closed ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: How do you know that it's closed?

                    Student: Because the 't' is blocking the 'e'. The 'e' is just saying, "Hey, let me out."

                    DeAngela Huggins: It's saying "Let me out." It's closed. So what type of sound would it have? Long or short sound?

                    Students: Short ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: Short sound. So let's read our syllable together. It is ...

                    Students: /c/, /ă/, /t/. Cat.

                    DeAngela Huggins: What is it?

                    Students: Cat.

                    DeAngela Huggins: Very good. Nice. Alright, here we go. Open or closed syllable? What is it?

                    Students: Closed ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: It's a closed syllable. What consonant is closing in our vowel?

                    Students: 's' ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: What's going to be the sound of our 'u'?

                    Students: /ŭ/ ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: Let's read our syllable.

                    Students: /tus/ ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: Very good.

                    Narrator: If the students can easily identify closed syllables, then they can quickly determine that the vowel sound is short. Putting them well on their way to reading multi-syllable words.

                    DeAngela Huggins: Why is it important to know that if it's open or if it's closed? Why do we need to know that? Why don't we even care, Leona?

                    Leona: If we know if it's open or closed, then we know if it makes its long sound or its short sound.

                    DeAngela Huggins: And that helps us to do what?

                    Student: Read and write.

                    DeAngela Huggins: Very good. It helps us to read and write the words. So what was our syllable? Let's go...

                    Students: /las/ ...

                    DeAngela Huggins: Very good.

                    Students: Enjoy this video? Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Burgess-Peterson Academy and Atlanta Public Schools. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale, the American Federation of Teachers, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and three anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C., The Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.

                    DeAngela Huggins: This is Reading Universe.

                    Video thumbnail for Teaching Strategy Demo – Build-a-Word: Closed Syllables
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                    Antonio Fierro: Build-A-Word strategy is a strategy that helps students spell words with a new pattern they are learning. Using the routine that I'm going to model for you, students practice recognizing that connection between that phoneme and that grapheme. Let me show you what we can do, and I'm going to use a closed syllable word, right? The word is mop. What's the word? Mop. "I use the mop to clean the floor." Let's go ahead and tap the number of phonemes or identify the phonemes in the word "mop." /m/, /ǒ/, /p/. Wonderful. Let's go ahead and put it here on the board. /m/, /ǒ/, /p/. All right. This first phoneme is /m/. Hmm. Which grapheme represents that sound? "M." What about this one? /ǒ/. Which grapheme represents that sound? "O." Right? "O." And my final phoneme is /p/. Hmm. I think, we know it's the "p," right? Mop. Mop. Let's go ahead and write it. Mop. Mop. Right.

                    Video thumbnail for Quick Look: What Is a Syllable?
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                    Liz Quezada: I want you guys to tell me what is a syllable? Ready? A syllable is a ...

                    Liz Quezada and students: ... a word or a part of a word with one vowel sound.

                    Liz Quezada: Very good.

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