3. How to Teach Consonant '-le' Syllables

In this section we're going to walk you through the steps for teaching consonant '-le' syllables to your students:

• 3.1 Prepare for Instruction — Get ready and gather the materials you need.
• 3.2 Explicitly Teach the Skill — See how to introduce the new information to students.

At Reading Universe we use an evidence-based approach popularly known as structured literacy. Structured literacy is a way of organizing and delivering reading instruction to ensure students get all the skills they need in an efficient timeframe — and without any gaps. With this approach, teachers use explicit or direct instruction. Read more about structured literacy.

We recommend a daily phonics lesson routine that looks something like this:

Download the Phonics Lesson Daily Checklist (opens in new window).

Your lesson will start with a quick phonemic awareness activity, what we call a Listening Game. For consonant '-le' syllables, you could ask your students to do some syllable deletion. Here's an example you might try. Say,

The word is puzzle. [puzzle]

Now break the word into its syllables: 'puz-', '-zle'. Now delete 'puz-'. What's left? '-zle'.

In the Warm Up you'll use flash cards to review the syllable patterns your students already know — and syllables you'll use later in the lesson. For example, if you plan to practice decoding the word wiggle in the lesson, you can include 'wig-' in your flash cards. Be sure not to include consonant '-le' syllables in the warm-up until you have explicitly taught them.

Watch this demo to see how we recommend introducing the consonant ‘-le’ flash cards (opens in new window).

New/Review is where you will introduce the consonant '-le' syllable type.

During Dictation, students will practice spelling multisyllabic words with the consonant '-le' syllable type that they just learned. 

All of this leads up to the last portion of the lesson, in which students practice putting all the skills together for Reading with Fluency.