You know there’s a commercial I’ve seen many times and one of the tag lines is “….a little pill with a big story to tell…” Closed syllables are rather like that. They are almost the smallest words we have in our language. Open syllables can actually be shorter, using a single letter. But, closed syllables, which can be as short as two letters form over 50% of the words in our language. If these syllables make up over half of our language, they are worth knowing and knowing well!
Let’s start with what a syllable is in general. Simply put, and the definition I teach all of my students in my phonics catechism, “A syllable is a word or a part of a word with one sounded vowel.” I teach that there are six main kinds of syllables. Those are closed syllables, open syllables, silent e syllables, vowel team syllables, r-controlled syllables and final stable syllables. Closed syllables are the first kind of syllable I teach students to read because they are the most common and they use short vowel sounds which are the common sound, the sound a letter makes most often, I teach for vowels.
So, then what is a closed syllable? The definition I teach for closed syllables is “A closed syllable has one vowel, ends in a consonant and the vowel is short.” This includes simple words like at and it. So you can see that students can also start reading these syllables as soon as they are fluent in two letter sounds. Starting students reading quickly AS they are learning sounds helps them to stay engaged in the learning process as they are actually practicing the skill that is the purpose of learning letter names and sounds in the first place. Children love the feelings of pride they experience as they are able to piece together these bits of knowledge to make words to read on their own! This feeling of pride and wonder of discovery helps to keep them engaged and moving forward in their acquisition of fluency with letter names and sounds. Learning closed syllables and the rule(s) that govern them, as well as learning open syllables and the other types later on, keeps readers from having to try out and guess at which vowel sound to use when sounding out a word. They learn to recognize that if a word ends in a consonant and has one vowel that they should read that vowel with its short sound.
One reason that closed syllables make up so much of our language is that although they are as simple as two letter words like an and am, but are also words like champ and strand. Any word that has one vowel and ends in a consonant is truly a closed syllable. But those closed syllables include digraphs (two letters that come together to make one new sound; ch, sh, th, ph, wh), blends (two letters whose individual sounds can be hear in the new blended sounds; sl, tr, str, etc.), the floss rule (“When a word has one syllable a short vowel sound and ends in /f/, /l/, /s/, or /z/, double the final consonant.”), and distorted vowel sounds as in an and am, as well as the broad sound for a (“A makes its broad sound when it comes after a w or qu, before an l or at the end of a syllable.)
Before you despair and say or feel one more time that it is hopeless to master English because it is crazy and makes no sense, take a deep breath and look back at the last few sentences. What may seem like exceptions to the simple definition of a closed syllable are actually just examples of additional rules and facts that truly govern our language. The English language IS complex, but it IS also governed ALMOST in its entirety by rules. While there are many rules, according to one expert, Denise Eide, in her book, Uncovering the Logic of English, there are 31, once you learn those rules there are very few true exceptions in our language. The exceptions according to Denise Eide are fewer than 20 words. 31 rules may seem like a lot to remember, but when compared to remembering how to read and spell the thousands of words in our language, 31 quickly shrinks to a manageable number of pieces of information to learn and remember in order to master a truly wonderful, expressive, impressive language. Learning these rules will also open up a world of possibility for you and your little learners if you are a teacher in the traditional classroom or your own classroom at home, interventionist, or just a parent with a struggling reader.
So, before you give up for yourself or a little (or not so little) learner who has been entrusted to you, take a deep breath and rest in the fact that English IS understandable. One of the littlest and easiest parts to understand is the closed syllable. A little group of letters, governed by one simple rule, that unlocks over half of our beautifully, complex, BUT understandable language.
Want more on how to teach about closed syllables?
Coming soon: week long lesson plan packets that include plans, activities and resources. A fully print and teach option.
You can find additional activities on my TpT store for closed syllables from reading to spelling here, though right now. Just click, purchase, download and start teaching and learning!!
