There are a number of ways to split a multi-syllabic word. It really depends on your approach; there are no hard-and-fast rules. Here are a number of ways to go about it.
The ‘how we say it’ approach
One approach is splitting a word according to how we say it. Take the word ‘wagon’. When we say the word, we say ‘wa-gon’. When readers split a word this way, they are likely to recognise it. This is a linguistic approach to splitting syllables.
The ‘open/closed syllable’ approach
Some teachers teach pupils ‘closed syllables’ that have short vowels in them and ‘open syllables’ that have long vowels in them. They would split the word ‘wagon’ as ‘wag-on’.
The ‘root word and morphemes’ approach
It’s productive to teach children about root words and the grammatical functions of prefixes and suffixes (e.g. ‘re–’ and ‘–ing’). This helps children with comprehension and spelling. In the ‘root word and morphemes’ approach, the word ‘looking’ would be split ‘look-ing’. This is more of a word-meaning route to splitting syllables.
The ‘spelling rules’ approach
Whilst the ‘root word and morphemes’ approach may split running as ‘runn-ing’, some teachers choose to split ‘running’ as ‘run-ning’. This is a rules-based approach, as the pupil will also learn the ‘doubling’ rule: double the ‘n’ when you add ‘–ing’.
Generally, we feel it doesn’t really matter how readers split up words, as long as they can decode the words and derive meaning from them. The only conflict arises with this ‘spelling rules’ approach, when there are double consonants in a word.
The ‘spelling rules’ approach is not compatible with a synthetic-phonics approach. In the word ‘running’, the ‘nn’ is seen as a consonant digraph for the phoneme /n/, and spells just one sound. As we do not split other consonant digraphs, like ‘ck’ or ‘ch’, we should not split the ‘nn’ into ‘run-ning’. As one of the basic principles in synthetic phonics is that two letters can represent one sound, we feel one should be consistent and stick to that principle.
We love the phonic books at school and they are helping so many of our pupils , especially the Totem and Tallisman series. I would love more parallel series to build the confidence. You have pitched these readers perfectly.
Also – any chance of publishing the hanwriting book in cursive script please? We use cursive script to support spelling but can find very little published material to support us …
Hello S. Gillies,
I will look into publishing a cursive script handwriting book. I have been meaning to do this for some time. Your post has spurred me on. I introduced cursive script to my Reception class, with much worry from the rest of the school. Apparently the difference of writing output in year 2 was amazing as they no longer had to re-learn how to write with joined-up writing, and were able to concentrate on written content. European countries introduce cursive script from the beginning. I wonder what happened to make our children have to re-learn usually in Year 2?
Wendy
Sorry, but “running” is “run-ning”
Hi Carl.
We are aware that chunking the word ‘running’ by splitting the double consonants e.g. ‘run-ning’ is the way used to teach syllable splits in programmes such as Alpha to Omega. This method is based on teaching spelling rules: that you double the consonant when adding ‘ing’.
Our approach is phonic: if you are teaching the pupil to listen to the sounds in the word when he/she splits the word, then he or she should split the word as it sounds (not as it is spelled). You are asking them to say two separate consonants that are actually a digraph (2 letters : 1 sound – ‘n’). As we do not split ‘sh’ or ‘th’ we shouldn’t split double consonants as they represent one sound in the word, not two.
Tami
oops, just got to the next section. Still, I’ve NEVER seen it as “runn-ing”