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)

Dividing words into syllables is crucial to reading long, unfamiliar words.

we’ll make a video soon