Expanding Phonemic Awareness with Syllable Types

Understanding how to break words into smaller chunks is a valuable skill in decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) unknown words. This is where knowing about syllable types can greatly benefit our young learners!

This set of worksheets has been designed to help students practice breaking words into syllables and identifying the corresponding syllable type. The six syllable types are: closed, open, magic (or silent) e, vowel team, r-controlled, and consonant +le. Students are required to:

• Read the word.
• Break the word into syllables.
• Color-code the syllables in the word according to syllable type.
• Write the word (broken into syllables) on the lines provided.

There are six different worksheets to work through. Answer sheets are also included.

Tips for Scaffolding and Extension

This syllables activity has been designed to support your students in developing a deeper understanding of syllable types. Should you need to support or extend students in your class, you may wish to try the following ideas: 

• For students who require support, complete the activity in a small group with targeted adult support. Discuss the phonemic characteristics of each syllable type to help reinforce these for the students.
• For students who require extension, provide them with additional syllables activities to complete independently. Our Syllable Examples Sorting Activity would be perfect for this purpose! 

Download the File Format That Best Suits You

Use the dropdown menu next to the Download button to select between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource.

Because this resource includes an answer sheet, we recommend you print one copy of the entire file. Then, make photocopies of the blank worksheet for students to complete.

Why not project the activity onto a screen and work through it as a class to save paper? Have students take turns coming up to the board. Use colored markers to color-code the words according to syllable type.

This resource was created by Lisamarie Del Valle, a teacher in Florida and a Teach Starter collaborator.