I just completed a reading evaluation of a home-schooled student who has all the skills he needs except one: recognizing/identifying syllable rules. As students move into upper elementary grades, rules for syllabication become increasingly vital. This kiddo is now reading to learn, not learning to read. He may use context effectively but still stumbles over unfamiliar words with multiple syllables. If this student were dyslexic, he’d be crippled without an early introduction to syllable types.
I have found that most folks are not passionate about syllables. My family groans when I start a lunchtime conversation about open or closed syllables. But what about this? I paid a middle school student to learn syllable types one summer and he gained a couple of years’ growth in reading. AND he was no longer a behavior problem at school. My dearest teaching widower is resigned to the reality that we sometimes pay students to learn. But since finances are a topic I avoid like the plague, money and syllable rules are off the table for lunchtime conversations. Hey, anyone want to talk about the schwa?
Get your schwa shirt at Wilson Language- a terrific site for reading teachers.
Love the t-shirt! I don’t think it’s wrong to pay a child if it motivates them to do something with long term benefits. Paying them to clean their room… nope, but paying them to enhance their reading skills promotes enjoyment of reading and that promotes learning… any incentive that works is on the table! 🙂
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Well, it did the trick. After that, he was a changed kiddo! Thanks for sharing.
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What is Schwa? Had a devil of a time trying to spell that!
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It’s what happens to unaccented vowels so they sound like the vowel in ‘duh.’ You can hear it in the word ‘anticipate,’ 3rd syllable. If you’re a Yank. 😀 Your comment made me laugh, Chrissie. I can imagine the spell check going wild!
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Oh, like the word ManchestER when spoken like a Mancunian sounds like ManchesterUH or ManchesterOGH depending on the accent on the vowel and the persons regional accent. Or totallY becomes totalEE if your American? This is so hard to type how people sound, haha!
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Not only that, but our phones and devices with spelling suggestions don’t cooperate! I know I would love to hear you speak since my fondest memories of accents are northern English.
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Especially if we spell as we speak, ha! Aww, that’s lovely to know. How did you come across a Northerner then hon chuck?
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I was born in Lancashire near Liverpool.
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Oh, you’re a Northern lass! 🤗
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I was!
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How did you end up in the US?
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My mother was British and my father was an American serviceman.
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Ooh that sounds romantic 😊
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I wish. I think it was more that my mother thought that America was Hollywood. And when she became pregnant, they married. It was a disaster from the very beginning, sadly.
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