TRT Podcast #165: Teaching students to read longer words – with Devin Kearns
Dr. Devin Kearns explains why popular syllable division methods may not be the most efficient way to teach students to read longer words – and what to consider instead.
Full episode transcript
Contact Dr. Devin Kearns
- Find him on X (Twitter)
- Email: devin(at)devinkearns(dot)com
Phinder
Articles written by Devin Kearns (and others)
- Teaching world and word knowledge to access content-area texts in co-taught classrooms
- The role of semantic information in children’s word reading: Does meaning affect readers’ ability to say polysyllabic words aloud?
- The Neurobiology of Dyslexia
- Helping Students with Dyslexia Read Long Words
- Why Children With Dyslexia Struggle with Writing and How to Help Them
YOU’LL LOVE THIS PRACTICAL BOOK!
Looking for an easy-to-read guide to help you reach all readers? If you teach kindergarten through third grade, this is the book for you. Get practical ideas and lesson plan templates that you can implement tomorrow!
Love Freebies?
Subscribing to our email newsletter is completely free. And when you do, you'll get access to our library of subscriber freebies! Sign up below to get access to a wonderful variety of math and literacy resources.
Isabel
I don’t really understand what is Dr. Kearns’ method. From his explanation in the podcast, it seems he advocates for a more ad hoc, non-systematic and freeform way of teaching students how to read multisyllabic words. Perhaps it would be better to read some of his work where his method is more expounded. I’m not a teacher, just a homeschool mom, so I don’t have firsthand experience on how students would fare using the canonical syllable division system. It seems to me that having the old system may be a great starting point for kids even if they do have to learn extraneous information.
Anna Geiger
I recommend reading some of the linked articles – they should clear things up! And as Dr. Kearns noted in the interview, some people do believe they’ve benefitted from the more complex syllable division system. I do know, though, that it takes a great deal of time – which means we should look at it closely to make sure it’s the best use of instructional time.
Kimberley Cobb
In my tutoring I call it brain gymnastics when we sound out a word following its syllable type but when we sound it out our brain chooses a different, very similar word. For example. Chocolate or avocado and we also talk about the etymology a lot as well. Good podcast thanks!
I’d love to work with Dr. Kearns!!
Anna Geiger
Brain gymnastics – I’ll remember that one!
Yvette
I usually tell my students the open and closed method and they do understand it fully well. I will tell them that the long song is open and the short song is closed. There is no problem if they know they extra. We can never limit the students and their is nothing call unnecessary so I don’t agree with Dr Hammond on that.
strategies could be giving children the cvc word and say for example cat t is preventing the a from slipping off so the child who has a in the middle position would ask the t for an excuse.
Anna Geiger
I think there’s definitely room to disagree with Dr. Kearns, and I’m sure he would say that as well. Overall, though, I think it’s good to examine popular methods that may not be supported by research.