Questions on reading multisyllable words and how you can help students learn to read multi-syllable words.
Q: My child is having a hard time reading long words? How can students improve their ability to read multisyllable words? Why is reading multi-syllable words difficult for some of my students?
A: Multi-syllable words are harder to read than short words. To read multisyllable words the student needs to apply a more advanced strategy. Some students automatically develop the proper strategies for reading multisyllable words but many do not and struggle with these longer words. Direct instruction and guided practice helps the student learn how to handle these ‘long’ words. The majority of English words are multisyllable so it is critical to read them effectively.
Please see the informative article Reading Multisyllable Words: Helping Students Learn How to Handle Multisyllable words.
Right Track Reading Lessons and Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons both contain an entire section with lessons on handling multisyllable words. These direct instruction lessons provide reading lists of multisyllable words including direct practice with lists containing common prefixes and suffixes. For a detailed look at sample lessons from Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons go to Reading Lesson 69 and Lesson 71 and click to view the specific lesson. To view a sample lesson from Right Track Reading preview Multisyllable Lesson 4.
These questions were answered by Miscese Gagen a mother with a passion for teaching children to read proficiently by using effective methods. She is also a successful reading tutor and author of the reading instructional programs Right Track Reading Lessons and Back on the Right Track Reading Lessons. The purpose of this article is to empower parents and teachers with information on teaching children how to read. We CAN improve reading proficiency, one student at a time! More information is located at www.righttrackreading.com ~ Copyright 2004-2013 Miscese R. Gagen
