syllables

It’s a syllable when you hear a vowel

Talk like a robot to count the syllables:

I (1)

am (1)

the (1)

robot (2) ro / bot

pineapple (3) pine / ap / ple

watermelon (4) wa / ter / mel / on

Count only the vowels you hear, not the vowels you see,

because there are silent vowels,
like the magic e in ‘poke’ (2 vowels, but only one vowel sound = long o = 1 syllable),

and sometimes 2 vowels make one sound
like in ‘float’ (2 vowels, but only one vowel sound = long o = 1 syllable).

Sometimes words have lots of letters, but still only one vowel sound
like ‘sound’ (5 letters, but only one vowel sound = ow = 1 syllable),

or not many letters, but 3 vowel sounds
like ‘area’ (4 letters, 3 vowel sounds = air, long e, short a = 3 syllables)

We will go into more detail about syllables later. There are actually six basic syllable types.
Knowing the syllable type helps the reader figure out the sound of the vowel.
Dividing words into syllables is crucial to reading long, unfamiliar words.

we’ll make a video soon