Teaching Syllables in Upper Elementary and Middle School Classrooms

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Syllables are considered a lower elementary topic. Once kids know how to read, they don't need to spend time thinking about syllables. However, many of our upper elementary and middle school students never got explicit instruction in syllables. These kids are missing a key tool in spelling and decoding unfamiliar words.

Upper elementary and middle school students don't need much instruction on syllables. Spend a week teaching them explicitly, so you can refer back to them as necessary. For example, a powerful addition to your vocabulary instruction is having students break words into sounds, syllables, and morphemes. Adding this detail will help your students make connections to new words and be more likely to remember them when they see them in the wild or want to use them in their writing.

Besides being taught much, much more quickly in upper elementary and middle school, your syllable instruction will be a little different than in the primary grades. Most programs that teach syllables only teach one kind of final stable syllable - consonant + le. However, there are seven final stable syllable types. Final stable syllables, especially those beyond consonant + le, occur in many of the academic words your students will come across in upper elementary and middle school texts. Think about words like explosion, average, or generous. We expect kids to learn these syllables through exposure, and many kids do, but not everyone.

Below, you will find a slideshow that you can use to teach your upper elementary and middle school students the rules of syllables. I have also included practice pages, so students can apply what they have learned. Taking the time to practice the new skill will help strengthen their neural networks around syllables, decoding, and spelling. Here is how I arranged the week:

Monday: Introduce Syllables and Teach Closed, Open, and Magic E Syllables

Tuesday: Teach Vowel Teams, R-Controlled, and Diphthong Syllables

Wednesday: Teach Final Stable Syllables

Thursday: Review

Friday: Assessment

The activity is the same every day. However, the word lists are based on the syllables taught that day. The purpose of having an assessment on Friday is to force students to try to remember what they learned over the week. Trying to remember something makes remembering in the future easier. Syllables are not a vital topic in upper elementary and middle school, so I wouldn't record a grade for this assessment.

After this week teaching syllables, I would continue to refer back to them as I taught other lessons around phonics and morphology. Syllables are a tool we can use to understand a word, and that is how I would use them.

Here is the presentation. You can use it from here, or you can purchase a copy at Teachers Pay Teachers. The paid version will let you print the worksheets and edit the presentation.

I hope you found the presentation helpful! If you have kids who are struggling with reading, I recommend our Learning to Decode Scope and Sequence. We also have a unit on learning to write complete sentences.