The Six English Syllable Types

In English, there are 15 vowel phonemes (sounds) but only 5 vowel letters. (Okay–7 if you count -y- and -w-). But how does that work– with twice as many vowel sounds to represent as there are letters to represent them!? For his 1806 dictionary, Noah Webster figured it out (and changed the spelling of some words to make it work more consistently).  Basically, context predicts the vowel’s letter-sound association. The syllable type is largely determined by what comes after the vowel in the syllable.  In more than 90% of single-syllable English words, the vowel sound’s pronunciation is consistent with its syllable type. That would seem to be useful and important, but note these important caveats: 

• First, a syllable’s type predicts the pronunciation of the vowel only in stressed syllables. In an unstressed syllable, the vowel is typically pronounced as a weak and indistinct “uh” or sometimes “ih”, no matter how it is spelled. So, in words like “seamless”, the unstressed 2nd vowel spelled -e- is pronounced “uh”. The technical term for this kind of unstressed vowel is schwa.   (Fun fact: Most words have more than one syllable, making schwa the most frequent vowel sound in English!) 

• Second, the English language freely absorbs words from other languages, and words with origins other than English do not necessarily follow the syllable types patterns. While the majority of commonly-used English words follow these patterns, there are plenty of words that don’t.  In addition, using the syllable types patterns helps to know how to pronounce the spoken word. 

For example, the word anorak has three syllables, but unless you have heard this word spoken you won’t know if the middle syllable is an open type (an-o-rak)  or an r-controlled type (an-or-ak). An anorak is a hooded pullover jacket originally made of fur and worn in the Arctic. It’s pronounced “an-uh-rak” or “ah-nuh-rahk”. The middle syllable is open but unstressed (schwa).  

What are the six English syllable types?

© Lexercise

From Learning to Read to Reading to Learn

After a certain amount of exposure to reading, most people learn the syllable types’ pronunciation patterns unconsciously, without knowing they have learned them and without the need for explicit instruction.  They soon get to the point that, when they see an unfamiliar word, they apply these unconscious patterns to pronouncing it. At that point, they can teach themselves new words! They are ready to move from learning to read to reading to learn!

Try it!  Here are some real but very uncommon words. You may never have heard these words pronounced. Can you pronounce them? 

hent

zarf

garboil

juberous

epizeuxis

Students who struggle to reach that “self-teaching” tipping point benefit from explicit instruction and practice with word structure patterns, including the six syllable types and other structured literacy concepts.

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