In order for children to be good readers and spellers, they must learn that words are made up of small sounds, also known as syllables. For example, cat=c-a-t. Children need to learn to listen for the "bigger chunks" in words first before this step, i.e. baseball= base-ball.
Tips to encourage playing with small sounds (syllables):
- Teach your child to clap out small sounds in words by modeling how to do so and clap along with them
- Use their favourite song or nursery rhyme to clap to words with small syllables, i.e. teddy=ted-dy
-Look for inspiration in everyday activities; i.e. while eating dinner identify food at the table and hold out your finger for each name of food (hot-dog), use words at bathtime, (wa-ter), finding words while getting dressed, cooking, cleaning or even in driving in the car and spotting familiar stores.
Inspiration can be found almost anywhere to make playing with syllables easy and fun!
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