Literacy Talks

The Great Syllable Debate: Balancing Science, Structure, and Student Needs

• Reading Horizons • Season 8 • Episode 7

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In this episode, the hosts dive into the so-called “Great Syllable Debate,” unpacking recent research and long-standing practices around syllable instruction. From the reliability of syllable division rules to the role of flexibility, they explore what today’s educators need to consider when teaching students to read multisyllabic words—especially those with dyslexia or other reading challenges. It’s a conversation grounded in science, shaped by classroom experience, and focused on helping every student become a confident reader.


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Narrator:

Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere, brought to you by Reading Horizons. Literacy talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia and special education, and Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. Now let's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to this episode of literacy talks. I'm Stacy Hurst, and I'm joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny. And if you've been listening to our podcast for a while, you know that when we don't have a guest, we take turns choosing the topic. And this week, it is a topic that I'm so looking forward to discussing, Donell chose it. So we're going to let her lead the conversation, and we won't waste any more time. Just turn it right over to you, Donell. Let's chat. Okay, thank you.

Donell Pons:

Alrighty. So I'm going to admit that the title was click bait to kind of get us in. I don't know if there any is any great debate occurring, but maybe there is in your community, it's more of a conversation, and it's more that some things have come up and it's gotten people talking. And so, you know, may or may not be a debate we'll see. So we'll start with exactly what this conversation means. And for me, it's the pinnacle of science and research coming together, and it's informing instruction in real time. And it's always interesting to me, because we don't like to talk about how messy this can be, but it's pretty messy, and it makes us uncomfortable, I think, to have these discussions, even though I don't know why they do. They shouldn't, because this is what it's all about, right? Is learning and then application. And we also aren't very good at accepting that those small adjustments to instruction can make a lot of sense. And in fact, it probably answers a lot of questions, oftentimes that we ourselves might have in a classroom going, hmm, I wonder if and then when it's brought to us, it's brought to us, it's interesting. Sometimes we can go, ah, what? So it's these awkward moments that end up improving instruction. So I was really pleased to have this conversation today. So I know about the great syllable debate, even though I love it because it's very clicky. You can get on it. It's more of a conversation. And I think more than anything, it's, it's us kind of getting comfortable with some, some perhaps new information, or just information that has more specificity to it for some so let's begin and on that. We have a couple of things that we've we've picked up that we could read online, but there may be other pieces that you find online too when you Google this. So one of them was actually a reprint of a blog post by Tim Shanahan that he did for Reading Rockets, and it's called on eating elephants and teaching syllabication, where he does talk about the whole article by Devin Kerns. So if you haven't had a chance to read that one, this is kind of a synopsis by Shanahan, which is just fine if you have the time for it. And then also he mentions, within it, this work the thoughts of Devin Kerns in 2020 and the work on syllable division that came from something called, does English have useful syllable division patterns? So just to familiarize you with, oh, that was Shanahan talking about this piece within his blog post. And so that will be the other article that maybe we reference. But like I say, if you Google, you might find other things, because I have, I found other articles that were kind of interesting about syllabication. So let's begin. And Stacy, I might start with you, because maybe you're one of the first people I had this conversation with about this work, and then, because of you talking about it, I went in and saw Devin Kerns presenting on syllabication. That was really interesting. But what exactly is syllable instruction, and why is it so critical to the debate around teaching reading

Stacy Hurst:

so words are made of syllables, right? Like that is probably the reason that it's so important. I think a distinction is important to be made because we have knowledge of syllables and speech, which we can hear obviously, and you don't need to know how to read a word to identify syllables in a word in speech, so if I said umbrella, we can say umbrella, right? But in print, sometimes those syllables operate differently, and our spelling system is complex. So it's important to note when it is easier to decode a word based on syllables, more themes we have to consider in this conversation. But either way, I like to start with with my own students, a definition of a syllable, and it is a unit of speech that's organized around one vowel sound. That's when we're talking about phonological awareness, right? Phonemic. Aware. I mean not phonemic awareness, but in in print. And Devin Kerns has stated this to a syllable is has at least one vowel, and in that case, they're talking about a letter, because we can have that one vowel sound that is spelled with two letters, right? So I don't know if that answers your question directly, but very quickly. You can see how this can get complex if we're teaching these things, but I think either way, we start on the single syllable level, and then we build and

Donell Pons:

you can already see, I think you answered both parts of that question just in the explanation, how it's important to reading, as you pointed out. And so why do some educators believe syllable instruction should be a central focus in teaching reading and spelling, while others think it might not be as crucial as we once thought. Lindsay, do you have any thoughts on that?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Well, I think maybe what you're getting at Donnell is the way we teach them to divide syllables, right? Because, yes, we need to be able to read the syllables. And there is kind of this debate. I do see debates about this, and maybe, you know, hopefully more just professional discussion, because it's good to kind of get to, like the nitty gritty. But the question here is, how do you best teach students to read these multi syllabic words? And what I fear is, because what we what we do is we talk about, you know, which I assume we're going to get into some nitty gritty kind of of, like, how do you divide the syllables? What's the process, and what do you do? And then you have people pulling back saying, Hey, we don't need these, like rigid syllabication rules, right, which we'll talk about. But I think the key here is sometimes I worry that when people are saying that it could be interpreted as we don't need to do anything, and we still need to do something, we need to teach our students how to read a word with 234, syllables. Certainly, some students figure it out right, and they just do it. They you could teach them, you know, two syllables, and then they just apply that to everything. But a lot more, definitely need some kind of, you know, instruction in what to do when you get to this word that's a little bit longer. So I think sometimes I'm worried that with the conversation, that's what will be a takeaway where now it's just kind of holistic, and students will figure it out when we still need to instruct our students and how to read multi syllabic words. Yeah.

Donell Pons:

And I'm really glad Lindsay you pointed that out, because that is one of the concerns. Because that's never been stated, that we don't need any. No one ever stated that. Shanahan is quick to point that out, too, in his rehash in the blog post is, hey, look, he never said, don't it's just what type and what's most useful in certain settings, right? Yes, it's kind of a thing. We can have conversation about that. So I do appreciate you doing that. So Devin Kerns his research and Stacy, I'm going to have you address this one, because, again, you're the one who introduced me to his research has been pivotal in sparking this conversation. We're going to call it conversation or discussion. So what are the key takeaways from Devon's work that have shaped the current conversation about syllable instruction. What were those key takeaways? I think his

Stacy Hurst:

main point, I think, was that we're over complicating it right? Like six syllable types and six ways to separate a word into syllables is cognitive overload for a student. Yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And his other thing from his the his article, how does English have useful syllable division patterns? What he found is a lot of these syllable patterns are not very consistent. So he kind of is pointing out, Hey, why are we spending all this time teaching these certain you know, syllable division rules when it's not consistent? He found the the VCC, V pattern, very consistent, where you're dividing between the two consonants that are between the two vowels, right? But he found the VCV very unreliable. And so he's, he's saying, you know, he said, the unreliability of VCV may not justify the effort required to use the strategy. And what he's talking about VCV is after. You know, if you have two vowels and you have one consonant between them, then you'll teach, oh, well, you're going to break it after the first vowel, and that vowel is going to be long, because now that's an open syllable. So you're saying like Tay and then bowl instead of table or whatever. Actually better example, because that's a final staple syllable. A better a better example would be like dinner versus diner, right? So dinner, there's two ends. You split it in between, and then he's find that pattern very regular. So. VCV, like diner, where you split it after the vowel. Now that there The i is going to spell the I sound so you have die. Nerd, he said that that's not not as reliable, but that was not in two syllable words, right? He said, in two syllable words, it was a little more, I'm trying to find the percentages in two syllable words that was a little more reliable than in three or more syllables,

Stacy Hurst:

but we do still have words like Robin that won't follow that exactly.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. So he said, like he said, it was like 30% 30.5% of instances in VCV words, but that was, you know, any amount of syllables, and if it was two syllables by syllabic, then it was like, Oh, 47%

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, so a little higher. And I want to kind of point out a couple of things too, because I have been, probably for the past month or so, really going down this rabbit hole, although I don't know if it qualifies as a rabbit hole, one of the reasons that we need to focus on the vowel is because we have a graphotactic language, meaning the letters around the vowel influence the sound of the vowel. Typically, it's the letters that follow the vowel, which is exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about syllable patterns, because it helps the student know the sound of the vowel right, whether you're talking about single syllable words or not, and when Dr Kerns is saying that when we're splitting a word between two consonants, and the research has shown and by the way, I learned this years ago in the book called unlocking literacy, page 48 I even made note of it because I used to train teachers on this. We have almost 43% of syllables are in the English language. Almost half are closed syllables, right? So that is one reason. It's very consistent. And then, to his point, about 32% of syllable types are those open syllables. And he even posits that maybe we don't teach those terms to students, that teachers need to know that those are open and closed. And so combined open and closed syllables make up about 75% of any syllable we encounter, which is significant. But there are other syllable types that need to be addressed as well, and some of them in very common words.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And I want to jump on what you just said, Stacy, because you just hit something that is debated, where you just said, Hey, do do students need to know this label? So I think that's a big question in this conversation where you're dividing well, then do they need to sit there and label? This is a closed syllable. This is an open this is a val team. This is a final, stable syllable. But that's a lot of words, you know, do they need those labels? And do they need to label? Or, you know, because sometimes some programs have, you know, these, there a lot of steps in breaking the syllable and then they will label them as well?

Stacy Hurst:

So yeah, he's even talked about, do we need to teach the term the terms Macron and Brev and and he says no, and I kind of agree with that.

Lindsay Kemeny:

So when you guys think about the label of the syllable types, I'm curious for students do they need?

Stacy Hurst:

I actually think it's whatever it might be important to use something as a scaffold. Right in the the program I'm trained in, we do have a term for determining whether a vowel sound is long or short. And there, there are five skills that we focus on. So they're just referred to as phonetic scale, 12345, but very quickly, as soon as you get to multi syllabic words, you're just focusing on the pattern. So I think as long as we don't over rely on whatever term we're teaching, and we're focusing on what's the thing that students are able to read the words automatically. That's a good question, though. It's something to think about.

Donell Pons:

That's a really good question. And you know, Lindsay, it makes me think about the setting too, because we all teach in different settings and have taught in different settings. And for me, I'm picking up, typically, students who have struggled for years, unable to pick up the code, to be able to master this thing, to be able to take words apart. And so for the students that I teach, typically, having some foundation or base and some vocabulary to talk about these things is useful for them. But I'm thinking of a whole class, general classroom, and their first graders. How useful is it for them to be labeling things? It's a good question.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, well, and it adds to the cognitive load, I think. So, you know, it's one thing to be like, here's two vowels, okay? We're going to look for the letters around the vowels. We're going to chunk it and read each one, okay. And then it's a whole nother thing to be like, Okay, now, what type of syllable was that one closed? What type. Was that one open now read the word, you know, and I say that like knowing with my son, you know, I used several, a few different programs with my son. I worked with him over four years and and he has severe dyslexia. So, you know, I started out, we did label those vowel types because the program I was using at the time, that's what they did. But like looking back, I do kind of wonder, like, gosh, did he really need to know that was called a vowel team syllable, you know? Or, or did he know that? He need to know that? I don't really think so. He just needed to read the word. But did did did spending that extra time for a little bit labeling those? Did that help them really focus more on those letters and you know, the syllables? Did that help him focus and then did that help him later on as he's reading? Because, of course, like now, as he's reading, we don't stop and divide up a word. He can just read the word. He'll go, I still remember when he sat there and read unceremoniously, unceremoniously. I think it was in Harry Potter we're reading that we didn't have to stop and do all these syllable rules and and break, you know, and label all the syllables he just did it. So I guess what I'm curious is, did that help inform him to be able to do that or not? And I don't know if we have a clear answer on that, because, of course, whatever we're doing to divide syllables, it slows us down at first, but we don't do it forever, because the students kind of internalize it,

Stacy Hurst:

right? And anytime you're analyzing those patterns, it is useful when you're learning them right? That's why we have a lot of research to support analytical types of approaches to phonics.

Lindsay Kemeny:

But yeah, with my first graders now, like, No, we don't label the syllables, but I like what Donnell is saying, because she's like, Well, her adult students that she's teaching, she is, and it's nice to have this language to use to refer to the things and so really, in this conversation, we really have to think about who we are talking about, right, the age and who, and if they have a disability or not

Stacy Hurst:

well. And that goes clear through. Like you mentioned, Daniel, we're all teaching in different settings right now, and I think if I were to put my first grade teacher hat back on, the critical thing would be, can they identify the vowel sound and therefore the word, right? That's the critical thing with my pre service teachers. They need to know that terminology, and they find even identifying them very useful. But it kind of goes back to your question, Lindsay, how explicit do I need to be about this is for you to learn about the structure of the language. You don't need to be using the same terminology with your students.

Donell Pons:

And I almost think of it as I have this base of knowledge, and it's deep, has depth, and I dig into those parts when I need it. So when I see a student that and then I go down, I'll go, we're going to go three layers deeper. I'm going to go four. It's almost like that when you think about it. It's not a one size fits all. However, you have to know all sizes. That's that's the thing about this as the instructor, is I have to be available to understand and meet the needs of anyone who comes into that learning setting, and also understand what's appropriate for certain learning moments. And then when I go deeper and pull this out. So this is a really, I think this conversation leads us to think about many things that we do when we're teaching, reading, yeah,

Narrator:

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Donell Pons:

Okay, really good. This has got me thinking about so many things. Okay, so there's a question that did arise, and it's like, what role does syllable instruction play in helping students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties? I think we've touched on it several times. For me, I've said for my older students, it's a nice way to get language around this thing that has eluded them for so long, being able to take words apart and to give them a base from which to move from. So they just need to have a home base. I consider it home base, in a way, almost. Here's an instructional piece I'm going to give you about how we're going to approach saying this word when you see it, because it's this type of syllable that's giving our base. But. Then we have to have, at some point, flexibility. And I think this is the other part that Devin Kerns brings into the conversation, is because finding out that these, some of these types of syllables, didn't hold all that often when it got into a multi syllabic situation, and so the thought was, well, then just How helpful is it? We have a thing called flexibility. So does anybody want to chat a little bit about, what does that flexibility mean? Donnell talked about a base she's talked about, okay, it has a usefulness to be able to know what the syllable type is, to be able to approach it. But then there's a piece called flexibility. And Lindsay, how about you? What do you think?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, okay, I love this. And going back to, you know, talking about students with dyslexia, they need, I think, especially our students with dyslexia, really need a set ordered things to do. And we don't have to be like Donnell said, super rigid. But they need, like, because we all know those students, they come to a word that's big and they kind of freeze, or they just look at the first letter and they guess all the rest of it, right? And they don't know what to do. And I think especially our students with dyslexia, like we need to practice a procedure for them, so right away, they know, hey, look for the vowels, you know, and then whatever you do and whatever your program does, you know. I don't know if we know for sure, like, one specific way is better than another specific way. But like, like Donnell is saying you are being flexible. So I like, and I've used, like, so many different programs. They all do things a little different. One thing I like, Reading Horizons uses this, like, you look for the two vowels, and then you look in between them, and if it's, if there's only one letter or consonant between them, they use the phrase, one will run. I hope that's okay. I can share that. So you'll go, one will run. It kind of rhymes, so it helps them remember. So that means the one, the one consonant in the middle, will go with the second group, and then the vowel, you know, then you have just, you split it right there before that. So one will run with the second group, and you split it right there. So then you're looking at that vowel, and if there's nothing after it, you say the long sound when you look at it, all right? But then Donnell is asking about, what about flexible? Well, then if it doesn't work, you just say the other sounds. So you just flex the vowel. And some people will say, like, you just flex the vowel all the time. Okay. But students, I think it's really helpful, especially ones that are struggling, need this procedure. So you first say, one will run, and then they, let's say, they say K bin Cain. Does that sound like a word you don't know. No, okay, let's try the other sound. Ah, cabin. Ah, it works. And so we were flexible there, but we did have, like, a little procedure that, hey, that doesn't take long to learn, but it gives them a starting point for what to do. You know,

Stacy Hurst:

you're bringing back so many memories. For me, when I was teaching first grade, I will say too, the reason a student can be overwhelmed by a long word could be different. Because there's a certain point developmentally as a kindergartner or first grader, you see a long word, it doesn't matter what your knowledge is. It might be too much cognitively, so you don't really know how to attack it, as we say. So teaching them those skills, and I agree, especially for students with dyslexia, and they need those solidified, those solid like guidelines and guide posts for that. So I think it's beneficial for all students to teach that way. And one of the reasons that Dr Kerns this conversation is so has been so intriguing to me is because of the Reading Horizons method. We there in that methodology, we don't teach six ways to break a word into syllables. We teach two, and then we have a flexible skill as well. So really it's but it presupposes, as does any program, it presupposes that students need to know a certain amount about those vowels and how they operate in single syllable words before you can move on to that point. And I've been dying to share this because, as you know, in our Big Sky episode, I made reference to the journal that I've been keeping since my first time at Big Sky, and Dr moats even brought this up the first time I attended Big Sky, wrote down exactly what she said, Because I think Dr Cain research was kind of newer at that time she wrote his point is well taken that syllable types can be overdone, especially with Latin based and Greek words. And I think that's exactly where we need to be more intentional at that point of transition before when students are mostly learning Anglo Saxon words, things are pretty consistent, but then we really need to lean into morphology when we get to those Latin based and Greek words. And that's where the peeling off strategies come in, or knowing that even though a morph. Misspelled the same it could be pronounced differently depending on what other syllables surround it. So excellent point there that there is even teachers. We need that set for variability, right? We need to be flexible in that space,

Lindsay Kemeny:

teaching them to be flexible, yeah. And then you just said, we're talking about morphemes. And so that's one thing, and you'll see that in research studies where they talk about, there's two different ways to divide words. Right? You could do a syllable approach, where you're dividing by syllables, and, or you could do a morphological approach, right, where you're you're dividing the morphemes. And that's, you know, I use that with my son too. I used when he was either in fifth or sixth grade. We use rewards by Anita Archer and and that is what she's doing. They're looking at the the morphemes. So you circle the the prefix, you circle the suffix, then you look at what's left, you read that, and then you add it. And you know that is great, too. So there's so there's different approaches. You're probably not going to do if I'm a first grade teacher, I'm probably not going to be looking that much as much at morphemes. At first, I'm going to be looking at syllables, and then when we start to introduce more words that have those affixes, then we're moving to that, right?

Donell Pons:

Yeah. You know, this whole thing has got me thinking about, sometimes explaining it to my students. One of the things that's been helpful, like, I say, work with older students, and so for a long time they would see a multi syllabic word and panic, right? There's a lot of panic. Sometimes I might know that word because I've seen it before, whatever. Everybody knows what this feels like. And so one time I showed a video of someone learning to run hurdles. And you don't go out and just start jumping hurdles. You actually count your steps in between the hurdles. That's what they do. They actually that's a beginning hurdle is, count, count, count. On this foot I lift, leg goes over. Count, count, count, leg goes over. And I likened it to the beginning. Is going to feel like that? It's going to feel like we're counting our steps to get to that hurdle. It's going to feel like, geez, when can I just run the hurdle? I saw that person just zipping the track. It looks so cool. And I said, eventually we're not going to be counting steps. And to me, that's the same as teaching these, like, I say, a base rule, or some way fundamentally, for a student to go after a word, but eventually we are looking for them to be running around that track and jump in those hurdles without thinking about it, right? And so it's oftentimes nice to give your students an example of is this may feel like this, but this is where we're going, right? This is where we're going to start. This is where we're going to end up. And it's a lot like you saying to Stacy that developmentally, that's also important to think about too, because this conversation we're, if we're far reaching, right? We're going from younger to older, but we all recognize there's a developmental trajectory as well. What's appropriate for a student. We all know that,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and perhaps that's you know, one of the criticisms is that maybe, if you're a general education teacher, maybe you're taking it too long, where you're, I don't know, where you're spending too much time doing these kind of labored ways of breaking syllables, where maybe, you know, I don't think we have an answer like, how many hours or how many Minutes, you know, across the year does a student need? But maybe in the you know, maybe you're doing less for the whole class, because you can hear that they just start reading multi syllabic words with no problems. But then you have a small group of students that you still need to break down and give them more syllable division instruction. You know, I don't know

Stacy Hurst:

it's and we can't overlook meaning here, either because when we switch from a unit of speech, which is what a syllable is, to a unit of meaning which is what a morpheme is, and in either case, you're going to be more likely to recognize that word in print if you know the word, if it's already in your lexicon, right, if you already are familiar with it. So not discounting we're going to be using larger words when we're speaking to our students, but then really preparing them to be able to read them. There's a lot more that goes into it than just using those words with them.

Lindsay Kemeny:

That's one reason why I've thought about, you know, our English learners, like I wonder if our English learners, it's more important for them to, you know, to follow these kind of syllable you know, quote, unquote rules, but as a beginning, because if they don't have the word at all in their lexicon, it's going to be harder to flex the vowels, but at least if they have, like, a first Pass, and then you can tell them, oh, you know, let me tell you what popular means, or whatever it is, and connect it to the meaning. But it seems like for them, especially, we can't just be like, no process. I feel like having a process is going to be really useful for them

Stacy Hurst:

well, and even even in English, if it's that, it's the student's first language, we have some little thing called the schwa, which is the most common vowel sound, yeah, and it doesn't become a problem until we're focusing on the spelling of words, but they can be pronounced differently. I know I lived in the South for a while, and I. Where I lived, they pronounce the word police as police, but where I live now, we say police, I emphasize the schwa, so that sounded weird, but that is that is true, and I have found research that supports the idea initially, when you're teaching these words to students, if they haven't quite developed orthographic mapping yet, then it is important to pronounce it the way it looks. And then say, how does it look like? We should say it? How do we say it? And then identify, where is the schwa, where is the difference in this? And I've had great success using that with my students as well, no matter the age, but it is that as teachers, we need to be aware. That's why I go back to Aries phases, right? We need to be aware of where they are in order to know how to support them over that transition. There's so much here, right?

Donell Pons:

Thinking we could go off into different areas, and we've already touched on, I mean, my next question was leading to, is there a danger of spending too much time on teaching syllable division? Is that a problem? And Lindsay, you did address you touched on that in talking about, well, if you are spending a great deal of time in the general classroom, and most of the kids know how to do this. But then that ear, and I thought that was a really great comment that you made too listen with that ear, and if you can hear that, your students are so it's having them do the thing, so obviously your students are spending time doing the thing. And then I also have this little thing in the back of my mind that I keep thinking of, and it's that statistic of how little time students actually spend reading in a classroom, and it makes me think how difficult it might make it for the students to get to that point where they are running around the track rather than counting their steps because they simply aren't having enough time. Oh, yeah, right in text, yeah. So that's also interesting.

Lindsay Kemeny:

The application piece is, like, huge, and I'm always thinking that in my classroom, how many minutes of practice are they getting? And I don't mean how many minutes of practice doing, like a little worksheet or something. I mean, like reading,

Stacy Hurst:

reading, doing, writing, yeah, with feedback too, and some of them need more feedback than others,

Lindsay Kemeny:

yeah, yeah. And yeah, Donnell, that's when you're listening and you're like, Hey, listen, they're getting those multi syllabic words just fine. Or they are not. They are, you know, that's where they're kind of, you know, pausing, or kind of, maybe getting little scared, or like a deer caught in headlights look. And then you're like, Kate, let me, let me help. We're going to practice a strategy for dividing this you know more than you know you've already done in the

Donell Pons:

whole class. Yeah, I also think too. Over the weekend, I listened to a conversation with the author who wrote holes, one of my favorite books. I love it. My students love it. Holes is such a great book. Lou Louie, and I want to say it. Louis sax, I hope I'm saying it correctly. Who knows? But he said something really interesting. And here's a gentleman who obviously loves books, loves reading. He's written some tremendous pieces, but he they asked him, what was his favorite book reading when he was younger? What was his favorite reading experience as a child? Any of that could you come up with something? And he hesitated and waited and said, Hmm, you know what it was being read to that was really interesting. Okay, so this is a piece I'm going to bring in for a little bit. I was being read to by my fourth grade teacher. He says, I don't remember anything else she did. I remember nothing else about that year. I don't remember her name, but I remember she read Charlotte's Web. And I was so into that book. He said I was so into it that I cried in class and I got teased. Wow, that was really interesting. He said I was there, I was living it, and I began to cry in front of my fears and then got teased for it. But what came about conversation and made me think is how important all of those things are. So we've talked about the importance of having those students read so you can hear them, but also the role of hearing texts read to them is interesting. What are your thoughts there? Because that just made me think. It out

Lindsay Kemeny:

well, it's huge, because that's how they're being exposed to a lot of language you know, which you know, is important for all students, and especially important for English learners, because you want them to have those you know those words in their lexicon, right? So they, they, they're familiar for them, to them. And I like, I like the Emily Hanford shares this example of her son reading the word epitone, and then when he heard Oh, Epitome, he was like, Oh, that is epitome, you know, but you need to have that like word in your vocabulary in order to recognize it. So by reading aloud, Donnell, I think it's great that you brought that up by reading aloud and having these sophisticated. Conversations with our students thinking about the oral language, it's going to help them as they read, because it's just going to be easier to figure out what those words are, because they'll be familiar to them, right?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, especially if you're talking about the meaning. Also, one thing I love that Devin Kerns always points out, even when we're talking about decodable text, which he says is important. We shouldn't be using such obscure word, words with such obscure meanings, even if they match the pattern of the spelling pattern that you're teaching, just so we're always making those connections. And I don't know if I should be admitting this right now, but literally, maybe two years ago, it was in Devon session. I say it like We're BFFs, Dr Kern session, that I realized, like hearkening back to second grade, my teacher read us Where the Red Fern Grows. And I remember learning the word vittles for the first time then, and I learned what it was, and it was Dr Kearns was using this as an example. Guess what? I learned it's spelled V i c t u, a l s. I didn't know that. I thought it was v i t, t, L, E, S, and so all these years, when I've been seeing the word spelled V i c t u, a l s, I have been saying victuals like and I thought there were something different. Vittles and victuals are different. They're not same word. So unless we were focusing on and we go into that, we talk about lexical quality, which includes all of the ways to look at a word, right? So maybe if my second grade teacher had said this word, vittles, it might be new to you. It means food, and this is how it's spelled. I wouldn't have had to wait decades later to realize they were the same word, but my mind was blown. I love learning things like that.

Donell Pons:

You know, this is all. This has been all a really good conversation, and I'm glad that we've gone these different places to bring things together, because we are having more conversation around oral language too, and we're also having more conversation around text quality and being able to read a variety of texts, and not just the text that a student might be able to read on their own, but also hearing other texts. So I think this is all very it's a timely conversation to bring this all together. And I wanted to ask, how would you like to see the debate or conversation evolving over the next few years about syllable division or any of the other aspects we've talked about? How would you like to see it

Lindsay Kemeny:

Well, for one thing is, I don't want people to get too married to a certain way, you know. Like, I don't know, people get so passionate because they've seen it work, but I think we always need to be a little open to maybe there's a more efficient way, or a better way, to sustain open to that, but also be, like, open to criticism a little bit of the way you're doing it. Like, don't take it personally. It's just like, maybe there's another way, maybe understanding there are multiple ways to do this. So I don't know, sometimes I see people get just so passionate about, like, one program's approach than another, but I will, I would love, it'd be great to get more research, because, you know, on some of these specifics, like a specific method we do have some research about I just want to share a couple things where I'm reading this article called syllabic versus morphemic analysis, teaching multi syllabic word reading to older, struggling readers. So I need to keep in mind that this is for older readers, even though I teach younger, but they do share explicit instruction in syllable based analyzes is has resulted in fluent and accurate reading. So you're like, Okay, so there's support, but then it says that it's more effective when based on flexible segmenting of multi syllabic words. So that's like, what Dr Kerns is saying, like, we need to be flexible. And teach him to be flexible. We don't want these rigid rules. And it said it's more effective based on flexible segmenting, rather than syllabication rules, which have been reported to have no positive benefits on readers, multi syllabic word reading, which is, like, really interesting, but it probably goes back to to the unreliability of those in not two syllable words, but three or more, right? And so, not saying we can never teach any rules, but you're teaching them to be flexible within those I don't know. So I'm just saying there's more. It's not so black and white. There's like areas of gray here that I think we're still figuring it out. And so I think is the key is to stay open and to be flexible. But give your students a procedure that they can follow and teach them to be flexible with that procedure,

Stacy Hurst:

and keep the thing the thing like, look. For because another point is, if we over rely on rules, like I've seen programs that have students repeat rules constantly, but just repeating the rule will not ensure that they can spell that word. So going back to that application, and what I would like to see too, is more of a focus, because I think this could upend some apple carts if we're not careful, right? But I want to see more of a focus of being responsible about the research and how it is going to be translated to practice. Because some teachers might hear this and think, then, you know what, I'm not going to teach any of these patterns and just focus on peeling off, but they still have to know what to peel off, right? Or they have to know that base or root as well. So they definitely need instruction in the sound spelling system, including syllable types, how to make sense of that vowel sound. But yeah, I agree. Like being flexible, and I'd like to see more conversations. In fact, I have only talked to Dr Kerns about this, maybe a few sentences worth, because we were focusing on something else. But I have often just, I don't have his phone number, but to be clear, if I did, I want to call him up and say, can we just talk about this? Can we talk through this? Because there's so much of what he's saying that resonates with me. And I mentioned that Dr moats mentioned that too, but then later I have heard her say, but I think he goes a bridge too far, right? And I don't remember the context for that, so maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned it, but I think there's so much to still talk about, and what is the research saying. Initially, his research focused on patterns in print, not necessarily how students manage them, right? So research focused on, like you were saying Lindsay, on the programs with actual students in real classrooms to see what would work best for them, too, lots more conversations and research and not getting carts ahead of the horse. I think because, like you're saying Lindsay, like, use something and then adjust and be flexible.

Donell Pons:

It'd be nice to also offer teachers some guidance around how much time, yeah, and I realize that's going to vary, right? I totally, I totally get that, but I do think that, and again, I understand what I'm asking, too. That's not an easy thing. Lest it sound really simple, it's not to be able to come up with something like that to provide guidance, but it would be nice to be able to offer up something like that along those lines, and then also, I think, to be really clear about the benefits that students might be getting from being able to recognize patterns, and how that might also be improving their spelling as well. I think we've done some things, I've heard some things, I've read some things that sound really interesting and intriguing, but that would be interesting as well, because all that to say, we want our students to be able to go from counting the steps between those hurdles to being able to just run those without having to think about them. And that's really what we're all after in the end, right? Absolutely.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, there's a research article I really like. It's by Devin Kerns and Victoria Whaley. It's from 2019 and so he they share, you know, some strategies at the syllable level and at the morpheme level. And so, just to close, because we're talking about syllables at the syllable level, there's four strategies. One, identifying the syllables and words using simple principles. So I don't think he's necessarily saying to label them, but right, you're able to to to recognize you're recognizing those patterns. And then two, knowing different pronunciations of single letter vowel sounds. That's being able to you know at or a E or a reading the he uses the term polysyllabic. It's just the same as multi syllabic reading, multi syllabic words using a flexible strategy. You've heard us talk about that and then practicing correcting mispronunciations, and so that reminds me of Dr Archer's rewards program, because she will do that where she'll say, like, you know, she'll have the teacher go like, Cain, and they're like, oh, cabin. And you're like, correcting it to a word you recognize. So anyway, I liked that article and how it kind of gave those succinct strategies,

Stacy Hurst:

yeah, and that's the every syllable has a vowel strategy as well identifying them. And he he has come out and said marking systems can be too complex. I agree that they can be, but they're also really great scaffold in the meantime. And even something as simple as underlining a morpheme right, which he has said that he does as well. So and then the peeling off strategy is when you're on the more philological level, yeah, the

Lindsay Kemeny:

more Yeah. And she he did share that too. Sorry, I didn't get, I didn't share that one, but he did have strategies for, he said, pronouncing a fixes in words, to mastery, then to read. Words by identifying the affixes and the base words and then reading words in morphological word families. So, you know, you're going to read a lot of words that all have the RE stuff, you know, prefix or whatever. So yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

interesting though, when we're talking about the syllable level, he gave four different things to do. Again, that would mean we need to be flexible, but it all of this conversation has brought me back to the need to teach systematically, because when you're working within a system, you don't need four different things you know what to rely on when you've built knowledge in a way that you know they're using their long term memory for, and then also explicitly and sequentially. The sequence matters. That really matters too. And maybe at the point we haven't taught something, you can use a strategy that's a little more flexible for a student, but yeah, lots to this conversation, right?

Donell Pons:

Oh yes, lots to this conversation. But this has been great. Thank you so much. I we went many places, and they were all wonderful. I appreciate the conversation.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah. Thank you for the topic, even the click bait of it, because it can become a debate, I think. But I like what Lindsay said. Let's just stay open and consider possibilities and and refine what we know works right to a point that aligns with this research and upcoming research, and as always, I can't help but think of because I work with pre service teachers, teacher knowledge, and my first year of teaching, there is no way I knew any of this right, but I did know enough to flip the vowel, but I think that was a balanced literacy trick anyway, flippy the whatever it

Lindsay Kemeny:

was, but it's good. It's good to flex the vowel, right?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, yeah. But it's so much better when you teach all the things that go up to that in the first place, right, only to confirm what the word is. And then I also hearkened back to the fact that I did use a scripted program before as my knowledge was growing, and that could help compensate for what I didn't know. And I think publishers have that responsibility to help make sure that that that their materials can support teachers while they're still learning, which we all will always learn. I always say a script is useful, but it's a scaffold for teachers. It's not the dirty word that some people think it is, anyway. So I think I just continued the conversation. I feel like we're supposed to be wrapping up, right? I got carried away. Great topic. Donell, thank you so much for choosing it, and I'm sure we'll be addressing it Sarah and we should probably reach out to Dr Kerns and see if you can chat with us too. Be great, yeah, okay, and thank you all for being part of this conversation. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this as ever, feel free to reach out and please join us for the next episode of literacy talks.

Narrator:

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where literacy momentum begins. Visit reading horizons.com/literacy, talks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading. You.