Six Syllable Types: Phonics Rules for Teachers Episode 5

Understanding the 6 syllable types is a key piece of strong literacy instruction. In this video, we'll explore the basic characteristics of each of the 6 syllable types of the English language which includes: closed syllables, open syllables, silent e syllables, r controlled syllables, and consonant le syllables.

Learn which are the most common, the order to teach syllable types, and what each syllable type looks like.

A classroom teacher with 10 years of experience, Martha Moore hosts the Phonics Rules for Teachers Podcast. Drawing from her personal journey, she shares insights on transitioning from traditional teaching methods to a phonics-centered approach and the impact it has on students' reading and writing.

Each week , Martha shares a simple phonics rule, strategy, or background information and how you can teach it in your classroom.

For resources to go along with this series, visit the Phonics Rules for Teachers landing page: https://www.myprimaryparadise.com/prft/

Transcript

Today, I'm going to give you a basic explanation of the six syllable types that you should be teaching your students. [Music]

Welcome to Episode 5 of "Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach 'Em." I'm Martha Moore, and today we're going to be talking about the basics of each of the six syllable types. If you are not familiar with what a syllable is or you don't fully understand why you even need to teach syllables, I covered that last time, so go ahead and check that out.

Today, I'm going to give you a basic explanation of the six syllable types and their most important characteristics. Later down the line, I'm going to go more in-depth with each syllable type, but today, if you just want a basic overall understanding of what are the six syllable types, this is the video for you.

I'm also going to be sharing these syllable types in the order that I like to teach them. There are different orders that people teach the syllable types, but I will tell you for sure that I think the first two make sense to be taught in that order as the first two. Let's take a look.

First, we're going to talk about my favorite syllable of all time, which is the closed syllable. A closed syllable ends in a consonant and makes a short vowel sound most of the time. A closed syllable also only ever has one vowel letter. If there are two or more letters representing the vowel sound in the syllable, it is not a closed syllable.

Closed syllables are my favorite type of syllables because they make up about 50% of all of the syllables in the written English language. That means that as soon as students understand how a closed syllable works, they can read a lot of words. Closed syllables include these spelling patterns: VC, CVC, CCVC, CCV, CCCV, CCVC, or CVC.

Some examples of words with only one closed syllable are "on," "map," "wish," "thin," "shush," and "catch." Some examples of words that have two closed syllables are "happen," "problem," or "bathtub." And some examples of closed syllable words that have three syllables are "fantastic," "magnetic," and "basketball."


Our second syllable type is the open syllable. An open syllable ends in a single vowel letter and usually has a long vowel sound. It can also have a WA sound, i.e., the sound that you hear at the end of my name, Martha. Open and closed syllables together make up about 75% of the syllables in the English language. So again, if students know only these two syllable types, they are able to read so many words.

Here are some examples of words that are made up of only open syllables. Here are some one-syllable words: I, me, no, go, so, my, fly, we, she. Here are some examples of two-syllable open syllable words: redo, baby, taco. And here are some examples of three-syllable open syllable words: potato, banana.

Our next syllable type is the silent E syllable. A silent E syllable has a single vowel letter, a consonant, and then a silent E at the end. This can also be called a split diagraph because we have two letters representing one sound but it's split by a consonant. While silent E syllables often have a long vowel sound, that isn't the only job of silent E. In fact, silent E has six jobs in a silent E syllable.

Silent E's jobs are to represent a long V sound. For example, kite, hope, mate. Another job of silent E is to prevent words from ending in I, U, V, or J. For example, give, glue, pie. Silent E also makes C or G soft, and it can make S hard. For example, mice, cage, wise. Silent E also works to show that a word is not a plural. For example, how. And finally, silent E can make TH H a voice sound. For example, breath versus breathe.

Here are some examples of words that are made up of silent E syllables: gave, use, nose, bike, hope, homemade, milestone.

Our next syllable type is the R-controlled syllable. An R-controlled syllable has a vowel letter followed by the letter R. The vowel is then changed by the R. This includes the spelling patterns AR, OR, ER, IR, and UR. In a later video, I will go in-depth into how and when to use ER, IR, and UR. For now, let's just take a look at some examples of R-controlled syllable words: car, star, fort, born, her, fern, first, hurt, and purse. These are all one-syllable words that are an R-controlled syllable. Some two-syllable examples are partner, order, and burger.

Next, let's take a look at the vowel team syllable. A vowel team syllable is made up of two or more letters that produce a single vowel sound. Most of the time, these vowel sounds are produced with letters that we consider vowel letters, as in A, E, I, O, or U. But we can also see other letters that we typically think of as consonants, such as Y or W, or even, in some cases, other letters like an IG H working together with vowels to produce the vowel sound.

Vowel teams can be a bit tricky because vowel teams can produce short vowel sounds, long vowel sounds, and diphthong vowel sounds. A diphthong is a vowel sound that slides through more than one sound. For example, OI, OW. When teaching vowel team syllables, it's really important to teach each spelling pattern separately. Students should know that it is a vowel team, but they're going to need to learn the sounds that a specific spelling pattern represents.

Here are some examples of vowel team syllable words with one syllable: eat, bread, saw, now. Food, goat, coin, steak, stay.

Our final syllable type is called the consonant LE syllable. A consonant L syllable is a final syllable that has a consonant, an L, and an E, which makes a lot of sense. It comes at the end of the word, and the E kind of works like a silent E, as we've already learned. Each syllable needs a vowel sound, and in the consonant L E syllable, we get that vowel sound with a schwa sound and an L sound.

Some examples of words with this syllable type are table, cycle, needle, handle, puzzle, cuddle, purple. These are always in multisyllabic words, typically words that have two syllables.

If you started this video wondering what are the six syllable types, now you should know. A huge percentage of the words in English follow the patterns and the rules of these syllable types. So if you are able to teach them to your students, you are setting them up for success.

You might be wondering, how do I teach them? Don't worry, I've got you covered. In my next video, I will be sharing how the heck you teach syllable types to your students. So be sure to like and subscribe and stay tuned for that one next. Thanks for tuning in to Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them. [Music]