10. Resource Hub: Teaching Closed Syllables
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
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
The production of speech sounds.
Articulation Skill Explainer
Syllables
Part of a word organized around a single vowel sound
Onset-Rime
Two parts of a word: onset is the initial sound; rime is the vowel and any consonant sounds that follow it.
Phonemic Awareness
The ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds within a spoken word
Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- Overview of Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- When to Teach Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- How to Teach Segmentation and Blending
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Phoneme Segmentation and Blending
- Assessing Your Students
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Phoneme Segmentation & Blending
(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
The relationship between a phoneme and the grapheme that spells it
Letter Names and Sounds Skill Explainer
- Overview of Letter Names and Sounds
- When to Teach Letter Names and Sounds
- How to Teach Letter Names and Sounds
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Letter Names and Sounds
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
(active)Phonics Patterns
Common letter combinations found in words.
Short Vowels Skill Explainer
- Overview of Short Vowel Sounds
- When to Teach Short Vowel Sounds
- How to Teach Short Vowel Sounds
- Videos: See it in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for Teaching Short Vowels
- Student Practice Activities with Short Vowels
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
- Overview of Closed Syllables
- When to Teach Closed Syllables
- How to Teach Closed Syllables
- Lesson Plans for Teaching Closed Syllables
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
- Overview of Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- When to Teach Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- How to Teach Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- Lesson Plans for Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k'
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
- Overview of the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- When to Teach the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- How to Teach the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- Videos: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plans for the '-ck' Spelling Rule
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- Students Who Need Additional Support
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer
Coming soon.
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
Handwriting, Spelling, and Typing
Methods for translating speech into written words
Handwriting and Letter Formation Skill Explainer
Sentence Writing
Sentence writing, or syntax, is the system and arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses that make up a sentence
Writing a Simple Sentence Skill Explainer
Sentence Expansion Skill Explainer
- Overview of Sentence Expansion
- When to Teach Sentence Expansion
- How to Teach Sentence Expansion
- Video: See It in the Classroom
- Lesson Plan for Sentence Expansion
- Student Practice Activities
- Assessing Your Students
- For Students Who Need Additional Support
- What the Research Says
- Resource Hub: Videos, Lessons, Activities
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
Additional Videos
Teaching Closed Syllables with the Alphabet Queen
Blending Sounds to Read Words with Short Vowels
Student Practice
Closed Syllable POP! (opens in new window)
Break the Code with Short Vowels (opens in new window)
Mixed Short Vowel Sorting Cards (opens in new window)
See the resource hub in our short vowels skill explainer for activities that you can use to help students practice identifying and reading closed-syllable words.
Lesson Planning Materials
The Alphabet Queen (opens in new window)
The Alphabet Queen Story Illustrations (Slides) (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan for Teaching Closed Syllables (opens in new window)
Lesson Plan Checklist: How to Teach a Syllable Type (opens in new window)
Dictation Sheet (Kindergarten) (opens in new window)
Dictation Sheet (Grades 1-5) (opens in new window)
Closed-Syllable Flash Cards (opens in new window)
Short vowels are the key to closed syllables. This lesson plan and our short vowels word list can also help teach about closed syllables.
Reinforcing Mixed Short Vowel Sounds (opens in new window)
List of Words, Phrases, and Sentences for Lesson Planning
Short Vowels Word List (opens in new window)
Assessments
Assessment for Short Vowels in Reading and Spelling (opens in new window)
Planning a Phonics Lesson
Phonics Lesson Checklist
Lesson Plan Template (opens in new window)
