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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--beginning reading and writing. The student develops word structure knowledge through phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and morphology to communicate, decode, and spell.

Have students work in pairs and take turns reading aloud sentences that include multisyllabic words with specific orthographic patterns and rules such as closed syllables, open syllables, VCe syllables, vowel teams including digraphs and diphthongs, r-controlled syllables, and final stable syllables. As one partner reads the words aloud, the other partner should listen for accuracy and share feedback. Students should switch roles to read additional sentences. The teacher will observe and note student accuracy and instances where students may have misread words.

The syllable types include the following:

  • Closed syllable—a syllable with a vowel followed by a consonant
  • The vowel is usually pronounced with the short vowel sound such as /cell/ in cellist and /pic/ in pickle
  • Open syllable—a syllable that ends in a single vowel 
  • The vowel is usually pronounced with the long vowel sound such as /mu/ in music and /ba/ in bacon
  • VCe syllable—a syllable with a vowel followed by a consonant and the letter e
  • The vowel is usually pronounced with the long vowel sound such as /ame/ in became and /ale/ in exhale"
  • Vowel team/digraph syllable—a syllable with two vowels together that make one vowel sound such as /oi/ in rejoice and /ou/ in cloud
  • Vowel team/diphthong syllable—a syllable with two vowels together that make a new vowel sound formed by the combination of both vowel sounds such as /ow/ in allowed and /ou/ in around
  • R-controlled syllable—a syllable with the letters er that is pronounced /er/ such as /er/ in concert and /er/ in served
  • Final stable syllable—a syllable at the end of a word with a consonant followed by the letters le and a silent e such as /ble/ in audible and /ple/ in people
     

Further Explanation 

This assessment requires students to apply phonetic knowledge in order to correctly decode and read aloud a variety of multisyllabic words. As multisyllabic words can be long and difficult to decode, students must learn how to break down words into smaller parts. This knowledge is acquired through practice and experience with decoding and is built upon as students become proficient with single syllable words with simpler, sound-spelling patterns. Word work can occur in all modalities to support all learning styles.

a syllable that ends with a consonant (e.g., the words tan, am, and left)
Students apply knowledge of letter-sound relationships in order to correctly pronounce words that are made of multiple syllables (e.g., celebration, refrigerator, invisible, hippopotamus).
When students demonstrate phonetic knowledge, they are not creating written content that incorporates an understanding of phonetic principles, but rather reviewing content and determining how the principles have been applied. Students will do this when decoding words they encounter in various formats, from activities in the classroom to stories they read for pleasure.
two successive letters that represent a single speech sound (e.g., oo in moon and ow in how)
Note that there are both vowel digraphs and consonant digraphs.
also known as a vowel blend, the combination of two vowels in one syllable where two sounds are heard (e.g., /ou/ in cloud, and /oi/ in boil) Note that the ou combination can function as a diphthong or digraph depending on the sound: it is a diphthong in the word couch /ou/ and a diagraph in the word cough /aw/.
a syllable that occurs in the final position of a word and has an unexpected but reliable pronunciation
a syllable that ends with a vowel (e.g., the words we and go)
a syllable that includes a vowel followed by the consonant r so its pronunciation is influenced by the /r/ and is neither a long or short vowel sound (e.g., farm, her, first)
a syllable that includes a vowel followed by a consonant followed by a silent e; in this type of syllable, the first vowel is usually long
two vowels that together represent one phoneme or sound (e.g., ea, ai, oa, ou)
Two types of vowel teams are vowel digraphs and diphthongs.

Research

Gates, L., & Yale, I. (2011). A logical letter-sound system in five phonic generalizations: this article introduces a strategy for teaching systematic phonics with a logical system of grapheme-phoneme relationships. The Reading Teacher, 64(5), 330+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A249869571/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=02914556

Summary: Researchers look at phonetic knowledge and show teachers an approach to basic vowel words, providing examples of one-syllable CVC words, one-syllable VCe words, and one-syllable CVVC words. The article provides guidance on individualizing phonetic instruction and connecting it with daily reading to build students' phonetic knowledge.