Most words in the English language have more than one syllable, and knowing how to split them up is an important skill children need to learn. In the past, phonics programmes have not put enough emphasis on this skill. Why is it important?
It helps with reading.
As children progress through primary school, the curriculum includes longer and longer words. By the time children get to secondary school, many of the subject-specific words have two, three or four syllables. Children who cannot break them up will have difficulty reading them. Take out all the long words in any subject taught in secondary school, and the text becomes incomprehensible! In short, not being able to read multisyllabic words means children cannot access the curriculum independently.
It helps with comprehension.
Being able to split multisyllabic words helps pupils to identify root words, prefixes and suffixes. Once they have learned the meanings of a word’s different parts, they can use this knowledge and apply it to unfamiliar words they encounter. They have a good chance of figuring out the meanings of new multisyllabic words.
It helps with spelling.
Often, when children spell, they omit sounds within syllables or even whole syllables within words. When children are taught to break up long words, they are more likely to be able to reassemble them in the correct order with the correct sounds and spellings. They may not spell them completely correctly at first, but they will have a go – which is what we need to encourage.
It helps with vocabulary.
Not knowing how to spell long words often limits pupils’ written-language skills. Why risk misspelling the word ‘enormous’ if you can get away with ‘big’? When spelling multisyllabic words becomes easier, children will attempt to use longer, more-interesting words in their writing.