How is being able to add syllables together to form a new word helpful to becoming a skilled reader?

Learning syllable awareness tasks — such as blending , segmenting, deleting, and adding — at the phonological level builds a foundation that is helpful to have when students are ready to learn more complex phonics and language skills. Children in kindergarten and even younger can learn to make new words by adding syllables to words. For example, young children typically learn how to recognize and create compound words, such as doghouse or cupcake. As students get older, they learn about affix es (prefix es and suffixes) and how affix es change the meaning of a word (clear vs. unclear; art vs. artist). And they learn about adding beginning word parts (re-, un-, mis-) and endings (-ing, -ed, -ful). Older students — upper elementary through high school and beyond — should continue to learn about word origins, combining words, and affix es. (Marty Hougen, 2023)