Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Maggie.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: And I'm Nicole. Welcome to the DAC Dyslexia in Coffee Podcast. We're so happy you could join us. We are both moms and dyslexia interventionists who want to talk about our students and children. What dyslexia is, how it affects our kids, strategies to help and topics related to other learning disabilities will also be covered.
Parents are not alone, and we want to give voice to the concerns and struggles we are all having. This is a safe place to learn more about how to help our children grow and succeed in school, in the world. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the conversation.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. We like to start our episodes with the concept of the week. So this week's concept of the week is actually a review.
The concept of the week is syllable.
So a syllable is a word or a part of a word with one vowel sound. There are six different types of syllables in English. We would teach every single one of those explicitly to our students.
And our topic today is syllable division. So when we are sticking more than one syllable together to make a word, how do we do that?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: And how do we break it apart to read it?
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: We've had questions about why we teach this before, so we thought we would just talk about it in an episode to kind of help everybody understand why this is an important concept.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So some of the reasons we teach syllable deficient, it allows students to read multisyllabic words by identifying the syllable types and their pronunciations within a word.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Learning about syllable division allows students to determine syllable types within multisyllabic words and then make an educated guess about how it's pronounced. So we're not guessing at the word.
There's things that we teach in syllable division that make it.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: That gets at that. That automaticity piece. Right. So when we say educated guess, we mean based on the phonics. So based on the sounds we know and the graphemes we see, how is this word pronounced? Or how could it be pronounced? Because. Because some words might have more than one true possible.
Like the word wind and wind, for example.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: They're spelled the same.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: They're spelled the same.
And if we have it by itself. Right. We don't know. But if we have it in connected text, they might have to make a good guess and then go back with the right one. Right. They might initially say wind when it should be wind, and they'll have to kind of go back. So that's what we mean by educated guess.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Correct. We just wanted to clarify that because it's A different episode for the. That we were talking about earlier.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Exactly.
So, again, this was our concept of the week, but worth repeating. We repeat it many times when we are teaching this with hand signals.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: You fascinate here. See us.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: You can't see us. We're still doing it in front of each other.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: I almost can't actually talk about it.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Without doing the hand motions.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So a syllable is a word or a part of a word with one vowel sound.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Yep.
A diphthong is a sound that contains two vowels in a single syllable. And the diphthong starts with one vowel and glides into another, kind of like oi and oy. They say oi. It's not. You can't really break that apart.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: That's right. It technically is two vowel sounds if you really say it slow.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Correct. But we don't teach it like that.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Most of the time. I do not teach it like this. Yeah. I usually.
And even oo is also a diphthong. Technically.
Ow.
Diphthong. Two vowel sounds.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Most of the time.
I call these vowel teams.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yes. Me too.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: And I group them just with vowel teams.
It does depend. I have taught it as diphthong before.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: It really depends on the student's interest, I think, too, of why is that different than a different type of vowel team that we have.
And sometimes, you know, if they're really having trouble hearing the syllables within a word, sometimes teaching them this really explicitly can help.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Like sometimes with like, oh, Y. Right. Like boy.
Sometimes students almost overhear it, and it'll be like, boy, Y, and they'll go too far and extend it too long. Correct. So having that idea of. Okay. Nope, boy, one syllable.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: So, yeah, in syllable division, you kind of. Obviously. Because the syllable is a vowel.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Yes. One vowel sound.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: One vowel sound. So you want them to identify the vowels pretty early in their syllable division because they need to know are they together or apart.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: And how they're making their sounds.
So we have an anachronym for our syllables that we use a lot here, and that's clover.
So the first type of syllable is a closed syllable, which is the C.
Basically, a closed syllable is there's a vowel and then there's a consonant closing it in.
So it has to. It can't do anything but be short.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yes. So most of the time, if we see a closed syllable, sometimes that's just shorthand. CVC word that is a short vowel. That is the first type of syllable we teach, and we stay there for quite a while. Usually we do we need our students understanding that closed syllables are first and foremost the most common type of syllables.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: And secondly, almost always that vowel is going to say it's short sound, and we want that very automatic before we move on.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: The next syllable type that we would teach typically would be that silent E syllable. Right. Sometimes called magic E. Sometimes we call that V, C, e.
Correct. That's where that E jumps over the single consonant and makes that vowel say its long sound.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Like a make or bake.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: So I just had it rhyme. I don't know.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: We would also teach open syllables.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: So the open syllables, that is when you have either a vowel by itself or maybe the constants before it.
Words like he, she, we all are open syllables. That vowel is going to say it's long sound.
Where it depends on the scope and sequence.
Usually I do teach that one kind of third, because while it's true that we do have some single syllable words in that category most of the time, when we're ready to teach open syllables, we're also ready to connect more than one syllable together. Like in the word open starts with an open syllable.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: I like how you did that. That was good there.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: We would also then write. So kind of going down the line, what's an R? Controlled vowel.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Something like a R, O, R, E, R, er, R or.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Because you cannot divide between them.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: You cannot. That's one sound, really, is how we want our students to understand. Understand that we want that one sound that's always together. It does. That R controls the vowel sound.
Then we'd have our vowel teams. So when we have two or more vowels that work together to make only one sound. Something like ee.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Right. You don't divide in there.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: You can't divide that.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: No. Leave that alone. It's one sound.
And then the last would be that consonant L. E syllable. Something like bubble. The last syllable is made by a consonant. And L in an e. Correct. We need our students to have pretty strong foundations in at least two syllable types, usually to be able to go on to syllable division.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Correct.
Because there's a lot of words, especially compound words, that one may be a cvc. Then one might be an open, and then they're combined together.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Right. Or like a closed syllable and a magicy syllable, like pancake.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Right.
So they would only be able to do half of that word if they only had the one syllable type.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Exactly. So what do we look for? What do we teach our students to actually look for in words when we're telling them how to divide syllables? Guess what? There's rules for this.
Really? When I say rules, I do mean pattern.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: True. Yeah.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: So the first pattern we might address.
There are kind of some different names, but if. I usually like to teach this as rabbit. If you picture the word rabbit. Right. R, A, B, B, I, T.
We have two vowels in that sound in that word. Right. We have A and I.
I teach the students to look for the vowels that make a noise.
If they're a little kid, maybe I say talking vowels.
I have them label those vowels, and then look what's in the middle. In the case of the word rabbit, there's two consonants. I'm going to have them label that. What do we do when we see that pattern? We have two vowels, and in between our two consonants, that's when you break it. Yes. Karate chop. Right.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Divide it right there.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Right down the middle. Right down the middle between those two Cs.
We're going to always teach them. Then when we have that pattern, that first syllable is always going to be closed.
It has that consonant right. Attached to that vowel. Can't go anywhere. Vowel's going to say it's long or excuse me, it's short sound.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Words like mass, index, napkin.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Correct.
And then sometimes. Then we jump after that one. There might be another consonant in there, but there's. It's still following kind of that same rule where there's a vowel, two, three consonants, and then another vowel.
But usually something in there is either a blend, which is two letters that make their own sounds, but they're stuck together. Like st says St. And that's. You can't divide that. So then we kind of look for those things in the word to know exactly where you would divide between the consonants.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So words like mon, Ster.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: All right. We're keeping that mon with that first syllable. And that stir. ST goes with that second syllable.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: What do we do with words? Right. So now to get to the next patterns, we absolutely have had to teach open and closed syllables.
So another common pattern is when we see two vowels with only one consonant between them.
Almost always, about 70% of the time, we're going to divide after that first vowel. So a word like robot, that's going to create an open syllable, that first syllable.
But a word like cabin would also follow that same pattern where it would be two vowels but one consonant between. In a word like that, you're going to divide after that consonant.
In order to get to this idea, we need to have taught that vowels can flex. We need to have taught that it Isn't always a one on one. This is where we get ourselves into trouble early on. If we're too reliant on. This is a rule. Right. If we're too rigid in our instruction early on, this can be kind of tricky for students to not understand that sometimes we might have to try two different ways to pronounce something before we get it right.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Exactly.
This is kind of my fun one. I don't know why I like this one, but this is when two vowels are next to each other, but they are saying their own sounds.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: So, for example, Right. Like in the word lion, L, I.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: O, n, you hear the I and the on. Right.
So then what do you do that.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: So this one is tricky because in order to get to this pattern, it is first and foremost the least common pattern. So we're going to touch this last second of all. They really have to kind of have the idea of this is not a vowel team.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: So if we see lion, L, I, O, M, I, o, that is not a vowel team.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Those are not working together. We're going to split them apart.
But again, where we need to be flexible is in a word like idea, E, A is a vowel team, but that's not what's happening in that word.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: True.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: So that could be tricky. This one is fun to teach because most of the time, when our students get this far, they're pretty fluent. They have encountered lots of rules. They have the idea that fouls can flex.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: And it's a lot of times kind of like the last.
It's for sure the last syllable division pattern we teach. Right. But it's also one of those kind of like, oh, wow, I really knew more than I thought I did kind of moments for students, because often, because they've had so much instruction under their belt by this point, often they're lifting those words, like create right off the page already.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: So that is always a fun one, I think.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Right.
So usually when you start with syllable division, a lot of times we start maybe with a compound word, because students may already know part of each word because they. They've seen them before, they know how they split. And it's easier for us to show them where the vowels are, where the consonants are, where the split would go. And they're able to see that.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a. It's really clear. Right. Popcorn. Popcorn. Yes. Outside.
Outside, it's Right. It is a tool that we use to set them up for success.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Correct.
Another tool we use a lot is look for the prefix or the suffix you know, first, because we want them to notice those. Right.
Because obviously, typically in syllable division, that would be somewhere you would break a syllable.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: That's right. When we get to even longer words. Actually, we were having this discussion earlier today, just among practitioners, I think, where some very common programs, where I have a little trouble with them, is that there's a lot of emphasis and focus on two syllable words and not enough on explicitly teaching how do we get to even more than that.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Words like common, li.
It's got to follow those rules. But we also then have to understand that calm is prefix, lee is a suffix. So actually, really teaching those students to look for the prefix and suffixes they know first is tremendously helpful, because if they can recognize those, really, I really can't emphasize the like prefix, pre, re, miss, dis, and un.
Those five early on, get those handled because that unlocks so much for those students. So getting them to really lift those off first and then taking a look at a base word, they're going to be so much more fluent, and they're going to have.
It's like adding to their vocabulary bank every time you do something like that.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Correct.
And then if you break it off and then you put it back on to read the word.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Yes. So when we'd have a kid read in connect a text or a word by itself, if they're stuck on it, that's our direction to them. Okay. Cover up that prefix, read that base word, add it back on.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Okay. Read the whole word, making sure we are having them. Then read the whole word.
Sometimes our students don't love to do that after they've done all the work.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Right?
[00:20:29] Speaker A: No, no, no. Okay. Do it all together.
So when it comes down to words with that consonant syllable, we're going to need to introduce the idea. Right. That this is a little bit of a funky syllable.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: It is.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: It doesn't really have a true vowel sound. And we're going to attack words with that consonant le a bit differently.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: We want our students to look at that sometimes. This is called sticky L as well.
We're going to teach them to look at the E at the end of a word, like in bubble, and then count back three.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So instead of starting at the beginning of the word, you're starting kind of at the end for this one, just because you need to figure out that it's a consonant L. E word.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
So how do we put this together for our students? Right. This is kind of a lot of information. I think a lot of this episode is kind of insider baseball.
A lot of terms that we use all the time, and our students know if they've been with us for a long time. But how do we coach students through words? That is, I think, what my parents are asking me the most.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Okay. How do we coach our kids through these words if we don't really know these syllable division patterns? If you don't know these syllable division patterns, you are in the majority. Okay.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't learn this until I actually went through this.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: The course.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I did not know this growing up. So it's been very interesting and kind of fun to learn because, honestly, it's really opened a lot of different things. Instead of looking things up all the time, I now can just do syllable division and figure out the word yes. Yeah.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: It is kind of amazing what just a few of these rules can do.
So the ways that we coach our students through difficult words in reading, we're going to tell them to use your finger to cover up everything but the first syllable. So we want them to recognize where that first syllable could be, cover everything else up, and decode that first symbol syllable first.
Then we're going to cover up just the second syllable or really cover up the word just the second and read just the second syllable, go through however many syllables we need to.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: And then put that whole word together.
Sometimes our students might not make the right choice at first.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Sometimes they might not make the right choice of where to divide that word up. We're going to be patient. We're going to coach them through it. We're going to have them decide. One of the things I'm looking for there, too, is, okay, are they making a decision that's based on frequency?
So if the word is, you know, camel, and they try k, mo. That's not a word. I actually love that as a practitioner, because actually, that's the most frequent pattern.
So that's what we want our readers to do. We want them to be flexible. We want them to know the rules, but we want them to be flexible.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Right.
And sometimes having them say them out loud so they can see. Oh, that doesn't sound right.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I mean, that's a very good practice to do because, yeah, you know, you're gonna hear some really strange things if it's not, you know, if they say it incorrectly.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Exactly. You know, the biggest thing here is we are not having students guess at the word correct. We're having students try different pronunciation based on the rules that they know. But we're not having students guess at the word. We want them to break it up. We want them to say smaller parts of the word and then put it all together.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Then we want them to go back and reread the sentence with that word.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yep.
So that they can understand the word in the context that is in the sentence or the story.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Exactly. Another thing that works really well is writing that word on a different piece of paper and working out where do we divide this word? You know, kind of. Some of my students are kind of calling it, like the long way, like the long division, which I think is kind of cute and also fun.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Yes. And that's where we put all of our vowels in our consonants into the word, and we're really breaking it down and scooping these syllables so they can see, oh, well, this one's closed. That means it's got to be a short sound. This one's open. It's got to be a long sound.
All right, now I got to put that together. What does this say?
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Yep. This is one of those.
This is one of those things that, you know, as a parent, when you're reading to your kids, we're not saying you have to write all these words out longhand or know these rules or any of that. But again, what we're asked is like, okay, but really, how do I help my kid?
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: And this is really how.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: You're working with them, having them try it different ways.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: But making sure they're looking at the letters exactly is really important. I mean, if that's the only way you can do it, that's great. Because we want them to know the sounds in the letters, and we want them to really pay attention to that and really try to sound that out. Yeah. Instead of trying to just come up with a word out of the.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Sometimes I get asked too, well, what happens if a word is kind of irregular as a kid is reading? Is there something different about that?
Really? No.
Really? No. I still want them breaking up the word because listeners who have been with us for a while know that one, truly, there are not that many irregular words, and two, the majority of that word is going to be regular. So if we have a multi syllable word, but one part breaks the rules, fine, we're going to talk about, okay, yeah, that breaks the rules or it's not quite the word. The rule, you know? Right, right. But we still want you breaking it up. We don't want you guessing.
We do want you reading.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: And this really builds their vocabulary this way, too.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Because, you know, you're. They're Finding parts of the words. When we get to the morphology or the meaning of words, then they can put these things together, you know, and it just builds their vocabulary so much more.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: This is another question I get asked. I think that really does relate to syllable division is early on, when we're teaching, when we're using nonsense words for our teaching, sometimes I get a little bit of a side eye from a parent, like, what are you doing?
Why are you working with words that are not real words?
Lots of reasons for that. And they have a lot to do with syllable division. I want them recognizing those patterns visually. Knowing how to pronounce unfamiliar words. A good example is, like the word part mand m a n d all by itself. That does not mean anything. It's nonsense, but it follows the rules. But when we're getting to syllable division, okay, the word demanding demanded, command, if that student's already really automatic at circling out that word part, that makes sense. They're going to be able to build words so much faster.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Exactly. Which is what we need them to do to decode.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Well, so what is happening? Beyond dyslexia.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So beyond dyslexia, we have coming up at our house, my son, my first grader, is in Cub Scouts, and we have the Pinewood Derby coming up.
So Pinewood Derby, for those of you not in the know.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: They get, like this little block of pine, okay. Wood.
And it comes in like a kit. And they can only use certain things. And they have to design a car. And it races, like, with gravity. So it's just, like, down this track.
So he gets to design his little car.
And we better hurry up because weigh in is on Tuesday. And as we record this, this is Thursday leading up to, you know, the weigh in. The weigh in.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Do they have to be a certain weight then?
[00:30:13] Speaker A: We. Yeah, it's got to fit per certain parameters. So they give you these little, like, weights, okay. To like, whatever, glue on the bottom and stuff. Um, so it can't be too heavy, but it can't be too light.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: So it's gotta sit. Fit certain parameters and yeah, it's. It's pretty fun. This is very much up my son's alley. He is very much. Anything with wheels is his jam. So.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: And, like, it's got the science aspect too, right? Because we're working with gravity.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: How much does something weigh? And aerodynamics.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds a lot like physics, which I didn't really.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Nor did I. Physics was not my jam, but it is my son's jam. So there you go. So here we are. The skills I really thought I left in high school.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Are coming back.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Are coming. It's all coming back to me now.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: What's going on with you? Yes.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: So I just saw a meme actually coming back to you, and it was like, I really hated homework as a child, but I hate it even more as an adult.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
Yes. I feel.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: I feel that every day when my children come home with homework.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: I was probably the worst kind of kid because I actually loved homework. I.
Yeah, I. I did.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: But that meme is so true that.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: But I hate it now.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: I hate it so much. Yeah, it's just. Yeah, it's not fun.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: I feel really resentful. Like I worked all day and did lots of things. I don't. No. Thank you.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: And I guess for.
For me, basically, DAC is getting really busy, and we're doing a lot of cool new things, and we're hiring a bunch of people right now to start this spring and summer. So we're really excited to get everybody onboarded. And it's pretty much a lot of what I do outside of this.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yes. The not so outside dyslexia is I picture the homework conversation. Right?
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Thank you everybody for listening. If you like our show, please follow us on social media and reach out. If you any questions or would like us to discuss a topic, please give us a rating and review on your favorite podcast, Pay it Player. This is how we reach more listeners and we get to help our families. Thank you, everybody.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Thank you, Sa.
Oh.
