[Music]
Xavier: I think, he -- he's kind of bad.
Linda Farrell: Oh.
Dog Man is?
Xavier: Yeah -- at his job.
Linda Farrell: He sure is.
He chews the table leg.
Oh my gosh.
Reading expert Linda Farrell is working with Xavier, a third grader at Windy Hill Elementary
in Calvert County, Maryland.
She'll be helping him learn how to read multi-syllable words.
Xavier: "... going to study Flippy's brain."
Linda Farrell: Keep going.
Linda Farrell: When we visit classrooms, it's a big issue: "The kids do well with small
words, but they can't read big words."
So I'll ask a student to read.
And they look at a word and it's "volcanic" and they read "volcano."
Or it's "fanatic" and they read "fantasy."
So they guess the most common word that has that configuration that that word looks like
it has.
What they don't know is how to break a word into syllables so that you're not reading
a big word that you have to memorize, but you're just going, "Oh, there's a little word,
a little word, a little word."
Linda Farrell: I'm gonna have you read some nonsense words.
They all have short vowels.
So, could you just read these three nonsense words.
Xavier: "Nad.
Naf.
Nef."
Linda Farrell: Good.
Alright.
What are these three?
Xavier: "Zib.
Zid.
Zash."
Linda Farrell: Your, uh, this is pretty easy, isn't it.
Yeah.
This is too easy.
We're done with that one.
Okay?
Now I'm gonna teach you about reading two-syllable words.
This is kinda fun.
Linda Farrell: We started with nonsense words with Xavier because often syllables are nonsense
words -- that when you combine them they become real words.
So teaching nonsense words is not an exercise in futility.
It is preparing children to read multi-syllable words.
Ms. Farrell now knows Xavier can read one-syllable words with short vowels.
Next she checks to make sure he knows what a syllable is, because breaking long words
into syllables is the key to the strategy she'll be teaching him.
Linda Farrell: I just remembered something.
I have to make sure you know what a syllable is.
Okay.
So look at me.
My name is Linda.
It has two syllables in it.
Lin.
Da.
Linda.
Okay?
So what's your name?
Xavier: Xavier.
Linda Farrell: How many syllables in your name?
Xavier: Four.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Let's stomp them.
Xavier: /Ex/, /ay/, I mean, /ex/, /zay/, /vee/, /er/.
Xavier.
Linda Farrell: You got it.
Linda Farrell: How many syllables in "computer"?
Xavier: "Com-pu-ter."
Three.
Linda Farrell: Yes.
You got it.
So you know what a syllable is.
Alright.
Cause that's really important if we're gonna read these big words.
So if I look at this word, and I want to know how to read that, the first thing I have to
do is figure out how many syllables are in it.
And I can do that by figuring out what the vowels are.
Do you know what the vowel letters are?
Xavier: 'A, e, i, o ,u.'
Linda Farrell: You got it.
Those are the vowel letters.
So here's what I know.
Every syllable has a vowel in it.
So in order to figure out how many syllables there are, I have to count the vowels.
So can you tell me -- how many vowel letters do you see in that word?
Xavier: Two.
Linda Farrell: Yep.
Are they together or apart?
Xavier: Apart.
Linda Farrell: They are apart.
If I have two vowels -- letters, and they're apart, I'm going to have two syllables.
So I'm gonna draw two lines right here, and I have to have a vowel letter in every syllable.
So can you break that word into two syllables for me?
Linda Farrell: Now this is a nonsense word, so we're gonna read it.
What's the first syllable?
Xavier: "Jod."
"Pum."
Linda Farrell: What's the word?
Xavier: "Jodpum."
Linda Farrell: So read it again.
Xavier: "Jodpum."
Linda Farrell: And the word is ...
Xavier: "Jodpum."
Linda Farrell: That's a nonsense word.
I just made it up.
I literally just made that word up right now.
I've never even seen that word before.
But we now know what to do if we have a word that we don't know.
So let's try another word.
Xavier: "Volcano"?
Linda Farrell: Oh!
You got the first two syllables -- you got the first syllable right.
How many vowels do you see?
Xavier: Three.
Linda Farrell: Together or apart.
Xavier: Apart.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Read each syllable.
Xavier: /Vol/, /cay/ ...
Linda Farrell: Hmmm.
What's that middle syllable?
Xavier: ... /can/, /ic/.
Linda Farrell: Touch each syllable and read it.
Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/ ...
Linda Farrell: Mm-hmm.
Xavier: /ks/
Linda Farrell: Wait.
Wait.
What's that?
Xavier: /ic/
Linda Farrell: Yeah.
Let's do it again.
Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/.
"Volcanic."
Linda Farrell: You just read "volcanic."
So what are the syllables in "volcanic"?
Xavier: 'O' ...
Linda Farrell: Those are the vowels.
What's the first syllable?
Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/.
Linda Farrell: I'm gonna ask you to do something.
I'm erasing this.
Okay.
So say "volcanic."
Xavier: "Volcanic."
Linda Farrell: How many syllables in "volcanic"?
Xavier: Three.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
I would like you to please see if you can spell each syllable in "volcanic."
So draw three lines right up here.
Linda Farrell: Do you think you can spell "volcanic"?
What's the first syllable?
Linda Farrell: What's that syllable?
What'd you just spell?
Xavier: /Vol/.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Next one.
Linda Farrell: Now write the whole word.
Linda Farrell: Oh my gosh.
You just spelled "volcanic."
You couldn't even read it and now you can spell it.
That is pretty good.
Do you want me to see if I can get a really hard one for you?
Linda Farrell: In teaching Xavier word attack skills, it's very important that we choose
words with short vowels that have only one vowel all by itself.
So you'll see we're not going to have words with 'silent e,' we're not going to have words
with vowel teams.
So we need two questions that we can ask Xavier that can help him break a big word into syllables
so that all it is is little small words that he has to put together to read a big word.
The two questions are ... how many vowels do you see?
Are they together or apart?
And what we teach him is that -- if you see three vowels and they're apart, you're going
to have three syllables, because every syllable has a vowel.
And then we teach him to draw a line for each syllable, write each syllable on a line, and
then read each little word and then put them together.
Linda Farrell: Let's see if we can try this one.
Linda Farrell: How many vowels did you see?
Xavier: Three.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Could you underline them please?
Xavier: I mean four.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Four vowels.
Are they together or apart?
Xavier: Apart.
Linda Farrell: So how many syllables?
Xavier: Four.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Linda Farrell: Could you move that 'n' over there?
Okay.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
So read each syllable.
Xavier: /Con/, /tic/ ...
Linda Farrell: What's that?
Xavier: /ti/, /tin/
Linda Farrell: What's this?
Xavier: /ti/
Linda Farrell: /t/, /i/.
What is it?
Xavier: /ti/
Linda Farrell: Okay.
So it's ...
Xavier: /Con/, /ti/, /nin/, /tul/.
"Continental."
Linda Farrell: You just read "continental."
Are you ready for another one?
Xavier: Mm-hmm.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Here we go.
Let's try this one.
Linda Farrell: How many vowels do you see?
Xavier: /o/ and /i/, /e/
Linda Farrell: Okay.
So how many?
You can underline them if you want.
Linda Farrell: Why don't you start here and go this way.
Yeah.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
So how many?
Xavier: Four.
Linda Farrell: Together or apart?
Xavier: Apart.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Linda Farrell: Do you wanna try to read it without breaking it into syllables?
Try it.
Xavier: "Accosh" -- "accomplishment."
Linda Farrell: What was the word?
Xavier: "Accosh" -- "accomplishment."
Linda Farrell: It's "accomplishment."
You are right.
As Xavier grasps the strategy, you can see him thinking through the two questions: How
many vowels?
Are the vowels together or apart?
And he's able to read big words without writing out the syllables.
Xavier: "Wil-ming-ton."
Linda Farrell: What's the word?
Xavier: "Wilmington."
Linda Farrell: "Wilmington!"
It's the name of a city ...
Linda Farrell: Xavier does a great job of learning how to attack a word.
After this lesson he has a strategy to help him break words into syllables and read them.
He will need lots of lessons.
We start with short vowels, then we move to 'silent e,' then we move to vowel teams.
So it's explicit and it's systematic when we're teaching him this.
Xavier responded beautifully to reading these long words.
[Music]
Linda Farrell: We're gonna do one more.
It is ...
Xavier: "Electric ... cal" ... "electrical."
Linda Farrell: You got it!
That was a good one to end on.
High five!
Yes!
[Music]
We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School
in Calvert County, Maryland.
We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.
Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding
colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public
Schools.
We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for
their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther
Edited by Christian Lindstrom
Graphic Design Tina Chovanec
Camera Richard Chisolm
Audio Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit
www.ReadingRockets.org
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.