Difficulty decoding polysyllabic words is a stumbling block for many youngsters. As Hiebert and Bravo (2014) comment, “We are confident that the single most lacking area at the present time in beginning reading instruction in the U.S. is the failure to guide students in strategies for dealing with the many multisyllabic words in their texts” (p. 14). In their classic study of struggling readers in grades two and four in which errors were recorded and corrected, O’Connor, Swanson, and Geraghty (2010) found that “By far, the preponderance of errors was on multisyllabic words.” More recently, the Literacy Research Panel of the International Literacy Association (2019) concluded that most literacy curricula present multisyllabic words too late.
A Key Skill
Because it is a key skill, syllabic analysis should be taught early and extensively. Decoding multisyllabic words should be introduced when the materials students typically read contain words of more than one syllable. Words such as seven, happen, given, under, over, mitten, and mother appear in beginning reading materials. Major Multisyllabic Patterns, in approximate order of difficulty, are listed below. Patterns were chosen on the basis of frequency of occurrence and ease of learning.
Major Multisyllabic Patterns
• Compound Words- sundown, someone
• Inflectional ing- digging, singing
• Er Syllables- bigger, better, batter, shopper, matter, brother
• Closed Short-Vowel Syllables- napkin, picnic, address, hopping, summer
• Open Long-Vowel Syllables- paper, prefix, tiger, solo, music
• Final-e Long-Vowel Syllables- mistake, invite, locate, confuse
• Vowel Digraphs
Long a -obtain, delay, neighbor
Long e–freedom, teacher, neither, cookie
Long i-brighten,
Long o-toaster, elbow
Long u-rescue, newer
• Adjacent Vowel- quiet, ruin, poet, idea
R Vowels-
air/- prairie, aware, canary, wherefore
/ar/- article, heartbeat, forest
/er/- person, early, dollar, circle, worthy, courage, furnish
/eer/- appear, pioneer, severe, frontier
/ire/- require
/or/- orbit, reward, detour, surely
• Other Vowels
Long OO– loosen, improve, routine, canoe
Short oo- wooden, Long OO– loosen, improve, routine, canoe
Short oo- wooden, cupful, couldn’t,
/aw/-awkward, audio, also
/ow/ tower, county, /oy/royal, noisy
• Initial Schwa-a Pattern- again, alike, ahead, across, about astonish
• Advanced Patterns
-ture-capture
–sure- treasure
-tion-action
–sion= /shun/ possession
–sion = /zhun/ conclusion
–cial -special
–cient –ancient
–cious-precious
-tious –cautious
Key Strategies for Reading Multisyllabic Words
The ultimate purpose of instruction in syllabic analysis is to develop students’ ability to decode words that are unfamiliar in print. Along with presenting patterns of multisyllabic words, the program also develops students’ ability to use strategies to decode multisyllabic words. Key strategies developed include the following. Click on the highlighted text to view the lessons.
• Adjusting Pronunciation (Saying the Real Word): When syllables are unaccented it is often necessary to change the pronunciation of the syllable.
•Determining Whether Syllables are Open or Closed: Syllables that are open (end with a vowel) generally have a long-vowel sound. Those that are closed (end with a consonant) generally have a short-vowel sound. Meaning can be used along with structure to determine whether a syllable is open or closed.
•Trying Another Sound: When the usual sound represented by the spelling doesn’t work out, readers try another sound.
• Phonetic Respellings: Phonetic respellings can be used to read technical terms and other difficult words and words that have unusual spellings.