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# Syllables? Syllable Rules for PLD Encoding & Decoding Lists and Specifically for Spelling?

###### As students progress beyond simple text, they must learn to read and spell multisyllabic words quickly and accurately. 

###### To read and spell these big words, it helps if students have an understanding of how syllables and morphemes work within words.

|| What are syllables and why are they useful?
A syllable is the sound unit within a flow of speech. It differs from a phoneme, which is a single unit of sound, as a syllable is a sound chunk that may be made up of several sounds. 

Knowledge of syllable types can help students with a visual or organisational tool to help them decode and pronounce unknown words and improve reading skills.

| There are different views on syllable segmentation
__There is a difference between syllabifying when decoding and when encoding.__ Hence, there are differences when syllabifying words: orally, for reading and for spelling.

![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/6/7/a/e/67ae980d1c7d2000/year-4-user-guide-pld-08-05-20_1vadtnm.png)


Below are the functional syllable segmentation rules that assist the process os spelling stage 3, 4, 5 and 6 words.  

||| Types of Syllables
* As 75% of all syllables in English are either open or closed syllables, PLD starts with teaching these syllable types.

* Once students understand the open and closed syllable types, they can practice in longer multisyllabic words, such as napkin, table, donut and concave.

* The next most important syllable to teach is the Schwa syllable. The easiest way to teach this syllable is to teach them as units (-le, tion, sion, ture, cious).

* The remaining syllable types tend to be less common and are usually learned well during single-syllable instruction and therefore require minimal additional practice.

|| PLD's Approach to Spelling Syllable Segmentation: 
![Teaching Syllables](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/67ae980d1c7d2000/screenshot-2022-11-16-14745-pm_eiyv9b.png)