Learning Multisyllabic Words with ‘Silent e’ and Vowel Teams
After Xavier learns how to read words with one vowel all by itself in each syllable, the next thing we do is we teach him ‘silent e,’ so that if he gets a word like porcupine that has ‘silent e’ at the end, we teach him — we add a new question. And it is: do you see a ‘silent e’ at the end? So then we say, “How many vowels do you see?”
And he’ll say, “Four.”
“Are they together or apart?”
“They’re apart.”
“Do you see a ‘silent e’ — yeah — at the end?”
“Yes.”
And then he sees a ‘silent e’ at the end, and you know that that ‘silent e’ stays in the syllable with the vowel before it. So of course they have to read one syllable words with ‘silent e’ before they can read multi-syllable words with ‘silent e.’ It’s just another question. So then we read some of those.
Then the next step is to read words with vowel teams. So let’s say the words is refrain. “How many vowels do you see?”
“Three.”
“Are they together or apart?”
“One is apart, and two of the vowels are together.”
Well, we teach you that when two vowel letters are together, they stick together in the syllable. So you’re only going to have two syllables in that word. But of course, in order to read refrain, you have to be able to know that ‘a-i’ spells /ay/, so you would have to be able to read one syllable words with vowel teams before you go to two syllable or three syllable or four syllable. It’s very simple. It’s not — there aren’t any really rules that we teach. It’s how do you look at a word and break it up.
