Does English Have Useful Syllable Division Patterns?

Autor/in	Kearns, Devin M.
Titel	Does English Have Useful Syllable Division Patterns?
Quelle	In: Reading Research Quarterly, 55 (2020), (16 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Kearns, Devin M.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0034-0553
DOI	10.1002/rrq.342
Schlagwörter	English; Syllables; Vowels; Phonemes; Pronunciation; Reading Instruction; Decoding (Reading) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? English language; Englisch; Silbe; Fonem; Aussprache; Leseunterricht; Dekodierung
Abstract	Programs for teaching English reading, especially for students with dyslexia, and educational practice standards often recommend instruction on dividing polysyllabic words into syllables. Syllable division is effort intensive and could inhibit fluency when reading in text. The division strategies might still be useful if they work so consistently that they will help students decode most unfamiliar polysyllabic words. No study of the English lexicon has confirmed that the pattern is highly consistent. This study addresses this gap in the literature. The utility of the two most frequently taught patterns was examined in a corpus analysis of 14,844 words from texts used in grades 1-8. The VC\|CV pattern involves a single vowel (V), two consonants (CC), and another vowel. According to the expected pattern, the first vowel should have a short (lax) sound, such as the "a" in "rabbit." This was true of 70.6% of instances in VCCV words in the corpus. For the V\|CV pattern, the first vowel is expected have a long (tense) sound, such as the "a" in "mason." This was true in 30.5% of instances in VCV words in the corpus. The patterns were more consistent for bisyllabic words than longer words (78.8% vs. 62.5% for VCCV words and 47.3% vs. 18.8% for VCV words, respectively). When comparing only short- and long-vowel pronunciations (ignoring other sounds such as schwa), the first vowel followed the expected pattern in 94.3% instances of VCCV words and 53.3% of VCV words. The unreliability of VCV may not justify the effort required to use the strategy. There are implications for the debate about the science of reading. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01