Have you ever learnt something that has completely changed the way you do things?  This is how I felt when I learnt about syllable types and it has been a game changer for my students.  If a struggling reader can see a multisyllabic word as a combination of syllables rather than a jumble of letters, their ability to decode and read those longer words increases exponentially.

For most dyslexic students words can seem to be a jumble and they need explicit, systematic instruction to be able to decode our language.

That’s where dividing syllables comes in.

In this blog post I want to break down:-

• what syllables are
• how to teach this to students and
• how to help them read a multisyllabic word by using syllable division rules and strategies.

Before you start teaching these strategies a student must have some basics under their belt.  You can read all about these skills in my previous blog posts.  Click on the pictures to have a read through. 

Why Teach Syllables?

This is a great question.  What’s all the fuss about syllables and how does teaching them help our struggling readers?

If we understand that words are made up of syllables and that in each syllable there must be a vowel sound, we can use this as a strategy to break words into manageable pieces.

What is a syllable in English?

If we are going to talk about syllable types and syllable division of  words we must first understand what a syllable is!

Vowel sounds are voiced and allow sounds to be released in words.  The easiest example of this is to see if you can say a word without vowel sounds.  Try to say ‘speak’ without saying the long /e/ sound.  It’s actually impossible even to say the /p/ sound without opening your mouth and letting a vowel sound out.  Amazing isn’t it.

So everytime we let out a vowel sound, we can count it as one syllable.  

How do you count syllables?

It is important to teach children how to count the syllables in a word.  There are all kinds of ways of doing this.  

• You can clap the syllables.  Every time a vowel sound is spoken it forms a kind of beat.  
• You can hold your hand under your chin.  Every time a vowel sound is spoken your chin will drop.
• You can stand up and stomp around the room – this is a great movement break for those wiggly kids.
• You can speak like a robot.  He-llo how are you to-day? We are learn-ing to read.

Check out this easy, musical video that gives examples of how to count syllables. Don’t forget, kids love being silly!! It’s so good to have a laugh whilst we learn together.

Syllable Types 

Once you know how to count syllables in a word you can learn the next step.  This is all about understanding the different syllable types.  Learning all about what makes up a syllable.

Recognising these syllable types will help tremendously when it comes to dividing a multisyllabic word.  Some people say that there are 7 syllable types and others say 6.  I generally keep it to six syllable types and include the seventh as an explanation.  This keeps it simple.

What are the syllable types?

Here’s a quick list if you want to see them straight up. Read on below to see each of these explained.

• Closed Syllables
• Open Syllables
• VCE Syllables
• Vowel Team Syllables
  • Diphthong syllable (the extra one)
• R-Controlled Vowel Syllables
• Consonant + le Syllables

The first two syllable types to understand are the open and closed syllables.  

A closed syllable

What is a closed syllable? A closed syllable is a syllable with one short vowel sound closed in by consonants either side.  Here are some examples of closed syllables:-

• cat
• hand
• camp
• sub
• bit

See the visual below for another example of what a closed syllable looks like.

An Open Syllable

What is an open syllable? An open syllable is a syllable that ends with a vowel sound written with one single vowel.  When a single vowel is not closed in by a consonant, the vowel says its long vowel sound.

Here are a few examples:-

• he
• she
• we
• me
• hi
• no

See the visual below for another example of what an open syllable looks like.

Silent e syllable – VCE (Vowel Consonant E)

These syllables have a silent or magic e at the end of them.  The job of the letter ‘e’ is to make the vowel before it say its name.  For example:-

• cave
• hope
• tune
• line

You might see a multisyllabic word with a silent ‘e’ syllable at the end or in the middle like these words:-

cup / cake

cave / man

Vowel Team Syllable

A vowel team syllable is one where there are two or more letters making one long vowel sound.  We label these V V syllables.  I make sure to say that there can be more than 2 letters and also not just vowels.  You can see why this is important when you take a look at these long vowel sounds.

• igh says long ‘i’
• ay says long ‘a’
• ow says long ‘o’

An example of a vowel team syllable in a word is:-

teacup

In this word there are two syllables.  ‘Tea’ is a vowel team syllable and ‘cup’ is a closed syllable.

R-Controlled Vowel Syllable 

The letter ‘r’ when placed after a vowel, controls the sound of the vowel.  That’s why we say they are ‘r-controlled’ vowels. 

For example if you read the word ‘car’, you can see that the letter ‘a’ even though it is by itself, does not say its short sound.  It has an entirely different sound.  You cannot separate it from the ‘r’.

Some ‘r-controlled’ syllables are:-

• target
• burger
• under
• carpet
• perfect

Consonant + le Syllable

This syllable is a fun one.  You find this syllable at the end of words.  They are called consonant + le syllables because you always keep the consonant with the ‘le’ at the end.  There are all kinds of ‘consonant + le’ syllables at the end of words. The letter ‘e’ is there to make sure that there is a vowel in the last syllable.

Some examples below are:-

• BLE bubble
• CLE uncle
• DLE muddle
• FLE sniffle
• GLE smuggle
• KLE sprinkle
• PLE simple
• TLE startle
• ZLE puzzle

The Extra Syllable Type –  Diphthong Syllable

I don’t tend to teach this syllable as a complete syllable type, instead I teach it as part of the vowel team syllable. Diphthongs are two vowels that make an entirely different sound. They are treated as one vowel sound when we decode the word and therefore included as one syllable.

• house
• boil
• toy
• look

As we start to teach our children all about the different syllable types we can also be introducing them to something called syllable division. We don’t have to wait until children are confident with all types of syllables before teaching them how to divide a multisyllabic word into syllables.

Dividing into Syllables

This is where it gets fun.  As soon as your student is confident with their short vowel sounds which you can learn all about in a previous blog post here, you can start teaching them how to read longer words.  You can do this by teaching a few simple rules for dividing syllables.

When teaching these dividing syllables rules, children need to know a few short codes. You can make your own ones up as long as you stay consistent. V for vowels, C for consonants, O for open syllables and CL for closed syllables etc.

VCCV Words

The first rule to learn is when you have words with two consonants between two vowels.  We call these VCCV words.

Here is a great visual for VCCV words.  You can find this inside of my dividing into syllables resource for VCCV words here.

Once your child has identified the vowels by popping a V under each and then the consonants in the same way, they can split the word in two by dividing in between the consonants.  This makes two chunks and each chunk has a closed syllable which makes a short vowel sound.  This is the easiest to learn, which is why I start with these words.  Here are a few words to try:

• rabbit
• velvet
• combat
• Dentist

Check out this short video showing how this is done:-

VCV Words

These words have one consonant between two vowels.  This is where you must decide where to split the word through trial and error.  You will either split the word before or after the consonant.  Check out this visual (part of my VCV activities resource) that shows you how.

The most common place to split these words is before the consonant, so try that first.  As you can see, splitting before the consonant makes the syllable open and therefore the vowel says its long sound.  However, there are some words that you split after the consonant.

Take a look at these words to see if the first syllable will be open or closed.

VCCCV or VCCCCV WORDS.

These words have more than two consonants between the vowels.  When words have lots of consonants between the vowels, it is more than likely that we will split the word after the first consonant.  

There are some simple rules you can apply when dividing into syllables with these words.

• Keep blends or digraphs together.

pumpkin pump |  kin

complex com |  plex

dishpan dish |  pan

• Split after a prefix

distract dis |  tract

replace re |  place

• Split between compound words

sunset sun  |  set

handbag hand  |  bag

lunchbox lunch  |  box

Consonant + le Words

A cute little rhyme that I learnt when it comes to splitting these words up into syllables is 

“ If I see a consonant + le I can count back 3.”

can / dle

If that is too tricky for children you can just tell them to split the word before the consonant + le.

Vowel Team and Non Vowel Team Words

Vowel Teams

• When you see two vowels together in a word making one vowel sound these count as one vowel.  Take a look at these examples for splitting these words into syllables.  Notice how the two vowel letters are counted as one vowel sound.

Non Vowel Teams

• Some vowels are together but make two separate sounds.  This is where it can get a little tricky.  If this is the case, the word is separated between the vowels.

Look at these examples below.

Now that your children know the 6 syllable types and how to divide a word into syllables, I hope you see their confidence take a huge leap forward when they next try to read a multisyllabic word.

If you have found this blog post helpful I would love for you to leave a comment below.  Also check out some of these resources that can help your children know how to decode a  multisyllabic word.

Find my syllable resources below by going to my TPT store here.

If your child is struggling, I would love for you to download my free guide to show you what you can do to help them and the important things you need to consider on the journey to get your child reading well.

Leave me a comment and happy learning!