Are you looking for tools and strategies to help your children understand open syllable words? Do you need resources to build your struggling reader’s comprehension and become more confident with reading new text? Look no further! Reading is vital, and understanding the sounds that make up a word can help students comprehend what they are reading. I will share what open syllables are and why your students need to learn this skill explicitly. I will also provide you with the best methods for teaching open syllable words by giving examples of a successful intervention that is Science of Reading aligned and has a variety of passages and activities. Be sure to download a free sample of these lessons and try them with your students!!

What are Open Syllables?

In linguistics, an open syllable is a syllable that ends with a vowel sound that is typically long rather than a consonant sound. This means that a consonant does not follow the vowel sound in the syllable, and the sound is allowed to carry over into the following syllable. Open syllable words can be more difficult for struggling readers to recognize and understand due to the lack of constant sound to close the syllable.

Examples of open syllables include …

Single Syllable Open Syllables

1. Go

2. He

3. Ski

4. Me

5. So

Multisyllabic Open Syllable Words

1. Baby

2. Paper

3. Robot

4. Acorn

5. Behold

The Benefits Of Recognizing Open Syllable Words?

Recognizing open syllables has several benefits for struggling readers, especially those who are building foundational reading and writing skills:

1. Enhanced Phonemic Awareness: Learning to recognize open syllables requires understanding the relationship between letter sounds and how they blend together to form words. By developing phonemic awareness, your learners become more adept at identifying and manipulating sounds in words.

2. Building Vocabulary: Understanding open syllables can also help your struggling readers build their vocabulary by giving them the tools to identify and decode new words.

3. Improved Writing: Recognizing open syllables can help your students become better writers by enabling them to correctly break down and spell multisyllabic words.

4. Improved Reading: Once your student can identify open syllable words and recognize that a consonant sound does not obscure the vowel sound, they will understand what they are reading. This can improve your reader's fluency and accuracy, which is essential for comprehension.

5. Increased Confidence: Recognizing open syllables can give your learners a sense of accomplishment and help build their confidence in their reading and writing abilities.

Why Do We Need To Explicitly Teach Open Syllable Words?

By explicitly teaching open syllables, you are helping your struggling readers recognize and understand what they are reading.

Here’s why…

1. Helps Develop Phonemic Awareness: Phonemic awareness is hearing and manipulating individual sounds in words. Explicitly teaching open syllables allows your readers to practice and develop phonemic awareness skills, a crucial component of reading readiness.

2. Improves Spelling: Understanding open syllables is essential for correct spelling. Teaching open syllables will explicitly assist your learners with improving their spelling skills by providing them with the tools to break down and spell multisyllabic words.

3. Provides a Strong Foundation for Language Skills: Open syllables are foundational for more complex language skills like understanding root words, suffixes, prefixes, and developing vocabulary. By explicitly teaching open syllable words, your learners will have a strong foundation to build on and be more confident and capable communicators.

4. Enhances Reading Comprehension: Reading comprehension involves understanding what is being read. Explicitly teaching open syllable words aids in developing strong decoding skills, which improves fluency and accuracy, enabling learners to read with greater understanding.

Overall, explicitly teaching open syllables is a critical part of developing foundational reading and writing skills.

How Does Understanding Open Syllable Words Aid In Reading Fluency and Comprehension?

Understanding open syllable words facilitates your struggling reader decoding and recognizing multisyllabic words in text. This makes it easier to read unfamiliar words by providing learners with the skills required to break down complex words into smaller, easily recognizable parts. This enables readers to decode the meaning of words more quickly and accurately, improving their reading fluency and speed.

When learners can easily recognize open syllables, reading becomes less frustrating, as they won't be slowed down by unfamiliar words. This makes reading fluency and comprehension of text easier to identify and read. Rather than stopping to struggle with words, learners can focus their attention on the meaning of the text, allowing them to develop a deeper understanding of the content. Thus, understanding open syllable words not only enhances decoding fluency but also improves comprehension, as learners can read with more confidence and ease.

In short, by learning to recognize open syllable words, learners can decode unfamiliar words more quickly, allowing them to understand written language better and gain more from reading unfamiliar text.

Needing a Multisyllabic Open Syllable Intervention?

Learning to read can be a daunting task for some children, especially when it comes to tackling multisyllabic words. That's where my Open Syllable Intervention with Multisyllabic Words can help. This intervention includes a range of components, such as word lists, Science of Reading-aligned syllable mapping, high-interest stories that use targeted open syllable words in both sentences and reading passages, and comprehension questions that go along with the stories. By engaging children in this process, they develop important reading skills, and their confidence in their abilities also grows. With these tools, they can start tackling those bigger words with ease and become fluent readers!

1. Open Syllable Word Lists

The first component is a list of multisyllabic open syllable words that students will learn to identify and decode. This list is designed to progressively increase in complexity to provide a gradual learning curve.

These word lists are a great tool for struggling readers who need to practice decoding longer words and expanding their sight word vocabulary. I've gathered some of the most common open syllable words to help your students break down each word into syllables. And the best part? These words are used throughout this intervention.

Before diving into our main lesson, I use these word lists as a warm-up exercise. This allows my students to get into the right phonics mindset and helps build their confidence before tackling more challenging tasks. This allows for more targeted instruction and allows my students to practice decoding and word recognition in a supportive environment.

2. Syllable Mapping

The second component involves teaching students the science of sound-spelling correspondence and breaking down multisyllabic open syllable words into individual syllables. The process of syllable mapping helps students develop their phonemic awareness, allowing them to understand better the structure of words and how to decode them.

Here are the steps I use when explicitly teaching my students’ open syllables.

1. Identify and underline the vowels in the word.

2. If consonants do not follow the long vowel sound, then it is an open syllable.

3. After identifying the long vowel sound, draw a vertical line after the vowel to show that the syllable is open. This will create a division between syllables.

4. Write the 1st syllable in the first box

5. Write the second syllable in the second box. 

6. Write and read the whole word.

3. Read Words in Sentences

The third component has students practicing the multisyllabic words they've learned to read them in sentences. This helps them contextualize the words and understand their meaning within a sentence structure.

Each intervention has 10 sentences that allow your struggling reader to read the targeted words in context. I always have my students read the sentences after the syllable mapping component. Steps I use when reading and identifying words in the sentences. 

1. Highlight targeted words from word lists. 

2. Read the words your student has highlighted.

3. Read the sentences for the first time together as a group. 

4. Read the sentences for the second time with partners.

5. Independently read the sentences for the last read.

4. Read Words in a Highly Engaging Story

The fourth component has students practice reading multisyllabic words in a longer passage to help develop their fluency and endurance.

Explicitly teaching students how to read a passage with targeted words can help them better understand how to apply open syllable words in context. I make sure each student has a copy of the text. Here are some strategies to consider:

1. Introduce targeted words: Before reading the passage, you will want to read the open syllable words in the list, map the targeted words, and read them in sentences. This will be a great introduction to the highly engaging story they are about to read. 

2. Preview and Highlight the open syllables in the passage: Preview the passage with students by highlighting any key targeted words. This can help set their expectations for what they will encounter while reading.

3. Model Reading the passage aloud: I always start with modeling how to read the passage aloud while students follow along. While reading, I emphasize the targeted words and pause to explain any additional context that may be helpful.

4. Choral Reading: After I model how to read the passage, I have my students practice reading the text out loud together as a group. It is a priority to adjust to the pace of my students. This can be slower or faster depending on the text and the class's ability. You can always repeat the process as desired to familiarize your students with the text and improve their reading fluency.

5. Partner Read: Partner reading is a strategy where two students read the exact text simultaneously. I have found that this type of reading allows students to have a conversation while they read, which leads to improved comprehension of what they have read. I use timers with partner reading. My students can read their part of the text, and then when the timer goes off, they know it is time for their partner to read.

6. Independently Read Passages: Independent reading is a vital tool for developing a student's literacy and comprehension skills. I ensure I always have time in my lesson to independently read the passage. Listening to my students read aloud independently allows me to check to see if the students are learning the skills being taught.

5. Comprehension Questions

Finally, students will answer comprehension questions related to the passage to ensure they understand what they've read and can make connections to their own experiences and prior knowledge.

After reading the passage, I have my students answer the comprehension questions at the end of the passage. I want my students to check their understanding of the passage they just read. These questions help my students to think critically and analyze what they have read. It is essential to encourage answering comprehension questions with evidence and details from the text to support their answers. Depending on the support your reading group needs, you might want to model the first questions with them.

I have seen incredible growth when all of these components are combined into a reading intervention. Don’t forget to grab a free sample of these lessons below.

Where to Find These Open Multisyllabic Word Reading Intervention?

Not only do I have an intervention for Open Syllable Words, I have an intervention for ALL SYLLABLE TYPES.

Thank you for taking the time to read about open syllable words! It has been a pleasure sharing these insights and strategies for explicitly teaching open syllable words. I hope this article was inviting and engaging, providing you with useful information that can be implemented during your multisyllabic word interventions. The most important information I want to leave you with is that working on open syllable words will help your students become more confident with their decoding of unfamiliar texts and demonstrate greater understanding when reading aloud. Please reach out if you have further questions! I’m here to help!

Related Articles:

• 4 Multisyllabic Word Activities with Examples of Closed Syllables