Teaching Syllable Types to ELs

Hello colleagues, I'm wondering if anyone has taught the six main syllable types to English learners, i.e., closed, open, vowel-silent e, vowel team, r-controlled, and consonant + le.

If you have taught syllable types, at what level did you introduce these? How did you approach teaching the syllable types? How did the students respond?

Thanks for any info you can share on this topic.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

Comments

We have Lexia Learning's "Software for Older Students" and our ELL student worker *loved* it because he finally got to see our crazily spelled words broken down into something logical.   

Hi Susan and all, Could you say more, Susan, about this software program? I gather it's not designed for language learners. Is that correct?  I am curious how it presents the syllable types.

I'm hoping to hear from others on this issue, too.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

 

I teach an Intermediate PreNursing Assistant class in which I focus in part on Tier 2 Academic Vocabulary in our CNA text.  In the course of teaching students how to divide syllables and pronunciation more generally, I have taught open syllables, closed syllables, vowel teams, and silent e syllables--usually one at a time.  Later I give students syllables to sort into the 4 types.  It appears to be very useful to them.

Hello Susan,

Two colleagues and I have done some professional development around the 6 syllable types and ESL learners, and in doing so we created a website to house our workshop materials, readings, classroom videos, etc.  That's here:  http://www.englishcodecrackers.com/  .  Our focus was actually very low-level ESL learners, many of whom had low or no literacy in their first languages.

I'll also suggest the Intermediate Word Study resource you can find here in the ATLAS EBRI resource library: http://atlasabe.org/resources/ebri/ebri-alphabetics 

ATLAS also has a brand new resource on beginning alphabetics (the BATT - Beginning Alphabetics Tests and Tools) available on the same site. For a brief description of this resource, see here: http://atlasabe.org/mn-abe-news/get-it-right-off-the-batt 

Best wishes,

Patsy Vinogradov

Director, ATLAS

Hello Patsy, Thank you for sharing these tremendous resources for teaching phonics and other "bottom-up" reading skills. These materials would be especially relevant to anyone who is working with adults who have had limited formal schooling, but I can see them being used with others, as well.

Thanks to all the talented and generous folks in Minnesota who developed these materials and for sharing them with the field. Marn Frank's resource books are beautifully designed and full of practical tips and tools for teaching reading. Members will definitely want to check these out!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP