Syllable Types- How to teach kids to read!

Confession time.

When I first started teaching, I had the worst time teaching reading and writing. NOTHING prepared me for the complex, way over my head, systems of reading. It seemed like there were so many parts and each part held all the other parts up.

It was hard, but as the years have gone on I have picked up some tools for my toolbox along the way. I first got word of syllable types a few summers ago in an hour long training at a three day conference. This past summer I went through some extensive dyslexia training and came back to it. It rocked my world.


For years I would help a child decode a word, and feel a quiet twinge of sadness when the word was used again on the same page and they still couldn't identify it. I was baffled at their spelling when I would see the same word written 5 times and each time was very different. I've felt the struggle that comes in when you want to leave sight words, but can't quite reach the gap into phonological expertise.

The problem I have seen for years, but haven't had a frame to put it in, is in their orthographic processing. Our language has PATTERNS. It has RULES. I'm not talking everyday, run of the mill, phonics, I'm talking breaking it down to syllables - and there are six kinds.

I encourage you to search the available literature. I have come across this article that sums up a lot of what I learned in the trainings. Click HERE to read and I'll include this quote from the article.

"Six written syllable-spelling conventions are used in English spelling. These were regularized by Samuel Webster to justify his 1806 dictionary's division of syllables. The conventions are useful to teach because they help students remember when to double letters in spelling and how to pronounce the vowels in new words. The conventions also help teachers organize decoding and spelling instruction."

I've also made a set of accompanying posters. Click the pic to download!

Enjoy!