Once you have taught closed syllables, it is time to teach students about long vowels and open syllables!
Grade Level
We begin teaching students about open syllables in kindergarten, initially focusing on one-syllable words. We continue to work with open syllables in both one-syllable and multisyllabic words as students progress through the grades.
If you have older students that struggle with differentiating between short and long vowel sounds, it’s critical that you spend time working with those sounds. We have included lesson plans and practice activities to help students distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in this skill explainer.
Prerequisite Skills
Before learning about open syllables, students should:
Know the terms consonant and vowel
Be able to identify letters that are consonants and letters that are vowels
Know the sounds for the consonants
Know short vowel sounds
Have a basic understanding of what a syllable is
Here’s a reminder of where you are on our phonics continuum — what you have taught and what’s coming up. This is not the only way to do things, and many programs will teach skills in a different order. That’s OK, as long as students learn all the skills.
Connecting to Other Phonics Skills
The structured literacy approach is systematic and cumulative. That means each time you teach a new phonics skill, you need to consider how it interacts with skills that students have already learned.
The Connection with Closed Syllables: When you introduce a new syllable type, like open syllables, you should also circle back to the syllable types you have already taught. Students previously learned about closed syllables. Now that they know both open and closed syllables, you can talk about the difference between these words:
got - go
beg - be
nod - no
him – hi
The Connection with 'Y' as a Vowel: Some open syllables end with 'y', like in the words sky and try. In an open syllable, 'y' says the long 'i' sound. We don't use these examples with our students until we have taught them about 'y' as a vowel later on in the continuum.
