Long Word Syllable Division...Megawords?

[wendyroo]

Peter's reading level/skills have been stagnant for the last 18ish months.  He reads a TON, and each day some of it is "real" literature, so I kept hoping that lots of exposure and practice would naturally improve his skills.  But he still struggles with the exact same types of words that he did well over a year ago.

 

His fluency and expression are really good.  He can easily read a book of mostly 1-3 syllable words, even if it includes advanced phonograms, weird silent letters, some of the common foreign imports, etc.  It is only when he encounters longer words that things quickly go downhill.  Entertainment, agriculture, implosion, continuous...he just panics and starts making wild guesses that add or subtract syllables, add or subtract letters, seem to fit in context even though they clearly don't even start with the correct sound, etc.

 

(His spelling of longer words is also absolutely atrocious.  Today in Sequential Spelling, he correctly spelled "be", "in", "begin" and "inning", but when asked to spell beginning, he wrote "beging".)

 

He has been reading me a page from Don Potter's Wise Owl Polysyllables every day for over a year, but I think it is time to find a resource that will more explicitly teach syllable division.  The problem with Wise Owl is that the words are introduced already broken into syllables, so he has mastered reading and combining the syllables, but when faced with a word like "seminary" he has no clue how to break it up on his own.

 

And I'm starting to find that I don't really have a clue either!!  Today he encountered the word "facilitate".  Obviously, I knew how to pronounce it and how to divide it into syllables, but I struggled to explain how Peter should know how to split it up.  How do you know if it is fa-cil-i-tate or fa-ci-li-tate or fac-i-lit-ate or some other possible division?  How do you know that the "fa" is pronounced with a schwa instead of a regular open syllable with a long vowel sound?

 

Is Megawords going to hit on these types of skills?  Is it more a reading program or a spelling program?  Because, honestly, getting him to the point that he can correctly spell "exasperation" is a much lower priority than getting him to read it correctly.  Are there other resources I should look at?

 

Thanks.

 

[Lori D.]

If he is 8yo (from your signature), that's still quite young to be in a panic about spelling multi-syllable words. It's possible that Peter had a huge jump ahead in his reading 18 months ago, and is now in that stage where his brain is working on things like reading fluency, comprehension, prediction, etc. Or, his brain may have side-stepped and is actually working on Math or Writing skills right now, and the Reading skills are on "idle" for awhile until the brain clicks and says "time to leap ahead in Reading again". With kids under the age of 9-10, it's really hard to know, always...

 

So in other words, what you're describing could be that perfectly normal "fits and starts" type of advancing in the LA and Math areas. Or it could be a type of "stealth" dyslexia, or mild dyslexia -- our DS#2 was in that camp, and it was very very hard to slow down and actually do the work of breaking down a long word into syllables -- much easier to make guesses. (Do some reading on dyslexia, and you'll see why this is so much work for them.)

 

For working on reading, we just did together reading every single day all the way through high school to practice, practice, practice, and to help him remember to slow down and do that work of focusingn on the longer words. I know you have a houseful, so that is likely hard to manage.

 

You might look at Rewards, although, I don't think that is a solo-program, but requires a teacher-parent (or a tutor). Rewards tends to be used with older students (gr. 6 and up), but they may also have a younger program -- although, your DS is reading some very advanced vocabulary at this stage.

 

Another option is to practice reading nonsense words made of several syllables (see WTM poster Elizabeth B's website). For example:

 

Conparsonant -- con-par-son-ant -- the point is to know going into it that it is NOT a real word, but it is meant as practice and building up endurance for slowing down and sounding out big words in real reading.

 

And yes, Megawords is helpful for teaching vowel patterns and syllabication rules, and yes, for us, Megawords did transfer over a bit from the spelling into DS#2's reading. It is designed for grades 4 and up.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by Lori D.

[wendyroo]

If he is 8yo (from your signature), that's still quite young to be in a panic about spelling multi-syllable words. 

 

I'm not worried about spelling long words at all.  At this point, (and yes, he is 8.5) his spelling is still pretty weak.  He asks me how to spell words like "next", "bleed", and "sky".  We are slowly working through AAS (and he can reliably recite and apply the rules), but there is almost no carry over to his writing.  I'm not overly concerned about that, but I have started slipping in some Sequential Spelling between AAS units to see if building up words (bee, tree, agree, disagree, disagreement) could help him see words as chunks that he can tackle individually.  So far I am not seeing him make that connection.

 

I am much more concerned about his reading.  Yes, undoubtedly, he was an advanced reader 18 months ago when he was 7 years old and reading at a high 3rd grade level.  But now he is a 3rd grader, and he literally does not score any higher on ElizabethB's Grade Level Reading Test than he did back then.  He cruises through words like coastal and grackle, but then hits a brick wall when he gets to surgical, disengage, polygon.

 

I'll read more about stealth dyslexia.  I never really thought about seeking out a label because he so effortlessly learned to read...up to a 3rd grade level.

 

I do read with him every single day.  I think we are running into two problems...1) there just aren't enough long words in most passages to offer sufficient practice, and 2) when we do run into a word (for example, "registration"), I don't know how to lead him through the process of breaking it down.  He really wanted to break off the prefix "re" and divide the word like: re-gist-ra-tion.  Clearly that is wrong, but I don't know how I would know it was wrong if I wasn't already familiar with the word.

 

ETA: He only broke up registration at all after I stopped him, wrote it down, and insisted he physically draw lines separating the syllables.  When he initially encountered the word he read it as "reggitted"...ignoring most of the middle letters and tacking on an "ed".

 

So, it sounds like Megawords would require too much spelling without enough reading practice.  I will look into Rewards; I am not at all opposed to a teacher-intensive program if it teaches the skills he needs to become a strong reader.  I will also look more into ElizabethB's materials.

 

Thank you.

Edited September 28, 2017 by wendyroo

[rebcoola]

Yes it does teach what you are looking for.   We haven't been using it long but are working on closed syllables right now.  I think it is more of Reading program than a spelling program.  

[MerryAtHope]

I tend to think he's young for some of those words too--I wouldn't necessarily expect a lot of 8 year-olds to be reading surgical, disengage, & polygon. I'd just help him with those when they come up.

 

How far is he in AAS? He can start applying some of the syllable rules to longer words if he's at least in level 2. For a word like registration, he did well to chunk the "tion" ending. That leaves us with: registra-tion. 

 

The first syllable is tricky. One consonant between two vowels usually goes with the second syllable (so his first attempt re-gist) wasn't far off. It was completely understandable that he might think the prefix "re" was involved. If "registration" is a word he has used a lot and would easily recognize, he might be able to know that it didn't sound like a real word to start it with "re" and could try it the other way--but if not, you would probably have to coach him to try it the other way (this is the same thing we as adults do when we see a new technical term or an unfamiliar name--we try it a couple of ways to try to see if we recognize it or if one way sounds better than another.)

 

For the next syllable, when there are 3 consonants together, you will usually divide after the first one (reg-is-tra-tion). If that doesn't make a familiar word though, the student would have to try dividing after the second consonant.

 

So, that's two syllables in a row where the student has to experiment a bit and it's not cut and dried. That's expecting a lot even if he did know "what we usually do" and "what to try if that doesn't make a real word." So, what might seem straight forward to us isn't necessarily that straight forward to a young reader. 

 

To me it sounds like he's actually doing pretty well over all, even if you aren't seeing growth in areas you expected. That doesn't mean I wouldn't work on longer words--but I wouldn't be overly concerned either. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lori D.]

Agreeing with MerryAtHope that he sounds like he's doing fine at this point.

 

I know it's frustrating that he seems "stalled" right now and not advancing as he was 18 months ago, but I still think that there's a very good chance that this falls within the normal "fits and starts" type of development. It could be that his extremely rapid and advanced progress took him to the edge of what he could process reading-wise, and right now, 18 months later, he is still in the stage of having to develop some further foundational skills in spelling, phonics, vowel patterning, and syllabication before he has the needed tools to move forward again with his reading.

 

As long as his reading remains at grade level or above, and if he's starting to progress with basic spelling, I wouldn't worry too much. Just give him a chance to start absorbing the spelling concepts that support reading decoding and see where he is in another 6 months. :)

 

BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

[ElizabethB]

I would work through my syllables program and follow with a mix of Megawords and Webster's Speller.  

The arrangement of words in Webster by schwa accent pattern is really helpful for students to understand the pattern of how words divide and schwa, and my syllables program teaches the syllable division rules for students to learn to divide words on their own.  I also really like Megawords and have had many remedial students who have had success with it.  I no longer own it, I gave it away to a mom who needed it, but I tested it out with some of my remedial students to see how it worked and make sure I could recommend it to people.

 

Both my syllables program and Megawords also explicitly work on spelling.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

 

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2017 by ElizabethB

[RenaInTexas]

I am using Megawords 1 with ds8 and he is doing fine. We do one lesson per day and recite the word list twice a week. I have the teacher's edition, thus we also complete the diction work and the assessments. I think it is more of a reading program than spelling; though both reading and spelling assessments are given. It is carrying over to his normal reading; he is starting to recognize syllables and sound the words out by syllable.