Institute of Reading Development

LONG-WORD DECODING

As they approach fluency, many children who easily read words of one or two syllables will falter when they encounter multisyllabic words. The Institute’s curriculum is designed to provide children with two sets of tools to break long words into manageable chunks: syllabication and structural analysis of word parts such as prefixes and suffixes.  The curriculum integrates these skills in a step by step strategy students use to decode long words with confidence and ease.

Long-word decoding curriculum developed by the Institute, which includes workbooks and direct instruction, is guided by three principles:

• Curriculum in long-word decoding teaches what is useful, but doesn't overteach. Curriculum is designed to help students read the words they are most likely to encounter in their reading. It focuses on the high-frequency prefixes and suffixes and common syllable patterns that will have the greatest practical value for students, not on complex technical rules for dividing words into syllables.
  
  
• Instruction avoids terminology that can be confusing and unnecessary. Instead, the curriculum uses language that is both understandable and has practical use for children.
  
  
• Instruction emphasizes reading whole words in context as frequently as possible. Students need practice applying the skills and strategies they learn in "real-life" contexts. Materials provide ample opportunity for students to read words in connected text, just as they would encounter words in books.

Syllabication:

A syllable is a unit of spoken language that has one vowel sound. Many students have learned to hear syllables in first and second grade. The goal of syllabication curriculum is to teach students to recognize how spoken syllables are represented in a written word. Instruction in syllabication teaches students to recognize six typical syllable spelling patterns and use them to determine vowel sounds when decoding long words.

Structural analysis: