The Importance of Syllable Awareness

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Table of Contents

Why Is Syllable Awareness Important?

Syllable awareness is an important part of learning to read. It is one step on the phonological awareness hierarchy that is necessary for reading. Phonological awareness is the process that children go through as they take language from whole words to individual sounds. 

According to the phonological awareness hierarchy, first children learn that language is made up of individual words. Next, they break up words into syllables (cac-tus), then smaller sections of onset and rime (l-og, pl-ate), and lastly into individual sounds (f-r-o-g). Once they can isolate individual sounds in words, they learn to tie letters to them. Lastly, they use their phonics skills of letter-sounds correlation to read.

Failure to break apart words into smaller sounds, such as syllable awareness, could be a sign of future reading troubles. If you are interested in learning more developmental milestones that are linked to reading, please visit our guide to monitoring for speech signs of dyslexia.

whole entity, words, syllables, single sounds

What Is A Syllable?

A syllable is a word or part of a word with one vowel sound. When a syllable is part of a word, it does not always carry meaning. 

Syllable examples:

1 Syllable: cat

2 Syllables: pic-nic

3 syllables: di-no-saur

4 syllables: cal-cu-la-tor

5 syllables: hip-po-pot-a-mus

Syllables, Reading, and Writing

In early years, syllable awareness skills aid children in reading and writing with segmenting and blending activities. Segmenting activities require students to segment whole words into syllables such as seven into sev-en. This skill progresses into separating words into individual sounds such as (s)(e)(v)(e)(n). Segmenting skills aid in spelling as students must first segment a word into individual sounds and then write the letters that correspond to the sounds.

Syllable blending activities require students to hear multiple syllables, then blend them to create a word. For instance, a blending activity would ask students to blend syllables Sept-em-ber to make the word September. This progresses to children blending individual sounds into words. For instance, asking a child to blend the sounds (b)(oo)(k) to make the word book. Blending skill aid in reading as children must first sound out each letter and then blend them to read the word.

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Syllable Types

There are six syllable types that your children will learn on their reading journey. As your child learns to read and write, it is important that they become familiar with them. Knowing the six syllable types will help your child read and spell long, unfamiliar words.

  • Closed: The vowel is short and at least 1 consonant closes the syllable.
    • Example: cat, it, pic-nic
  • Open: The vowel is long and the syllable ends in 1 vowel. The syllable must also be accented.
    • Example: me, go, hi
  • Vowel-Consonant-e: The syllable ends in a vowel, consonant, silent e. The first vowel is long.
    • Example: rope, five, snake
  • Vowel Pairs: Two vowels are right next to each other in the same syllable.
    • Example:  zoo, nail, moist
  • Vowel-r: The vowel is followed by the letter r and an unexpected sound happens.
    • Example: hard, fern, turn
  • Consonant-l-e: These syllable types are also known as final stable syllables and are “rule breakers” because there are no sounded vowels. The syllable appears in the final position of words, ends in a consonant, the letter l, and a silent e.
    • Example: handle, simple, ramble
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Syllable Awareness Activities

Syllable awareness activities are easy to practice at home with your child. All phonological awareness skills are composed of sounds only so you can work on these skills anywhere. Visit our guide to teaching phonological awareness if you would like easy and practical ways to harness these skills. You can also visit the Florida Center for Reading Research website for more activities broken down by grade.

What are some ways that you have worked with your child on their reading skills? Let us know on our connect page or drop a message in our comments. We would love to hear from you!