Assessing Students’ Ability to Read Multisyllabic Words

      A first step in developing syllabic analysis is to assess students’ ability to read multisyllabic words. Students’ syllabic analysis ability can be assessed in running records, informal reading inventories, oral fluency tests, and word lists tests by analyzing the students’ performance with multisyllabic words. The Syllabic Analysis Index, which can be used to analyze students’ syllabic analysis ability and indicate patterns that they have difficulty with, is presented at the end of this blog.

            Two informal syllabic analysis assessments are available at no charge at buildingliteracy.org in the site’s store and also at Teachers Pay Teachers in the document Assessing Students’ Ability to Read Multisyllabic Words. The Individual Graduated Syllable Survey consists of 50 multisyllabic words that gradually increase in difficulty.

The Group Graduated Syllable Survey consists of 50 modified cloze (fill-in-the-blank) sentences in which students choose from three multisyllabic words the one that best completes the sentence. Both Surveys assesses short-vowel, long-vowel, r-vowel, other-vowel (aw, oo, OO, ow, oy) patterns, patterns that only appear in multisyllabic words (cial, sion, ious, tion, ture, ure), and words that contain four or five syllables.

            Other tests that assess syllabic analysis include the following:

• Core Phonics Test. Assesses students’ ability to read key syllable patterns in two syllable words. It is available in Core (2008). Assessing reading: Multiple measures. Novato, CA: Arena Press.
• Gallistel-Ellis Test of Decoding Skills. Uses both real and nonsense words to assess two-, three-, and four-syllable words. Is available in Gallistel, E. (2005). Gallistel-Ellis test of decoding skills. Madison, WI: Montage Press.
• WIST. Assesses ability to read and spell a variety of multisyllabic patterns. Has both an elementary and secondary version. Is available in Wilson, B. A., &, Felton, R. H. (2004). WIST Word identification and spelling test. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
• Word ID. Designed for secondary students, assesses ability to read multisyllabic words in the content areas. Is available in Gutlohn, L., & Bessellieu, F. (2014). Word ID: Assessment across the content areas. Novato, CA: Arena Press.

            An instructional program for developing syllabic analysis, Foundational Literacy Booster: 50 Lessons for Reading Multisyllabic Words, can be found at buildingliteracy.org and Teachers Pay Teachers.

Name ______________________________________         Date_________________

Syllabic Analysis Index

After administering a word list test or oral reading test, analyze the students’ ability to read the multisyllabic words that appeared on the tests. Listed in approximate order of difficulty are the major syllable patterns. In the third column, list words that posed problems for the student. If the missed word incorporates more than one pattern, place the misreading in the row that contains the pattern that was missed. For example, if the student read hoping as hopping, you would place the misreading in the open syllable row. Show both the word that was misread and its misreading so that it shows the mistake that the student made. You would write hopping/hoping to show that the student read hopping for hoping. If more than one syllable is misread, place additional misreadings in the appropriate rows. A word in which two or more syllables have been misread would be placed in two or more rows.

                                                Patterns Missed       

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This is the second of a series of blog posts on syllabic analysis.