Page 16 - iRead EL in Research Paper

Syllabic awareness constitutes an essential link between [the] seemingly easy-to-acquire ability underlying our sensitivity to sound similarity and rhyme and that hard-to-acquire capacity to recognize individual phonemes (Adams, 1990, pp. 302–303).
Adams (1990) further observes, “. . . skillful readers’ ability to read long words depends on their ability to break the words into syllables” (p. 25).
From a reading uency perspective, as students progress in their reading from the partial-alphabetic phase of development through to the consolidated phase, they use their knowledge of recurring letter patterns to consolidate letters into larger units, which, in turn, facilitates their learning of words as sight words beyond the basic, high-frequency, non-decodable set (Ehri, 1995). Thus, this ability—to break words into syllables—is critical to skillful reading of long words, and to the acquisition of increasingly complex words as sight words (Adams, 1990; Ehri, 1995; NRP 2000).
RECOMMENDATION
Being able to break words into syllables allows beginning readers to more easily read new and longer words, thus improving their reading uency. Providing instruction that aids young readers’ ability to use syllabication strategies to unlock unfamiliar words promotes successful reading.
iRead’s Approach
iRead provides explicit instruction in syllable identi cation and segmentation. Starting with Level B, at the alphabetic phase, instruction begins to guide students toward reading chunk by chunk as opposed to sound by sound.
In iRead ’s strategic syllable awareness exercises such
as Word Solver, students analyze multisyllabic words by “spotting the vowels” in order to determine the number
of syllables, and then break the word into its syllables to make it easier to read. Later, in Level C, students explore six syllable types and learn to consciously activate syllabication strategies and to change strategies if the rst attempt doesn’t work.
Morphology and Syntax
Word Splitting
Morphology refers to the underlying meaning structure of words (Bowers & Cooke, 2012). In the context of foundational literacy instruction, morphological awareness refers to the ability to understand the function and meaning of word bases and a xes (e.g., in ectional endings, pre xes, su xes), and how they can be combined to form words.
Syntax involves an understanding of “the ways words are strung together to communicate meaning” (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012, p. 35).
Research Evidence and Expert Opinion
Because English words are represented both as units of sound (phonemes) and as units of meaning (morphemes), it is logical to conclude that literacy instruction needs to address both (Reed, 2008). Learning about morphology helps children
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