[roqe]

What is a syllable?

A syllable is the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) that's created when pronouncing a word.

The number of times that you hear the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) in a word is equal to the number of syllables the word has.

For Example:

• cake - has 1 syllable
• eat - has 1 syllable
• cheese - has 1 syllable
• eating - has 2 syllables (eat - ing)
• chicken - has 2 syllables (chick - en)
• worrying - has 3 syllables (wor - ry - ing)

Syllables Rules:

• A syllable is the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) that's created when pronouncing a word.
• The number of times that you hear the sound of a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) in a word is equal to the number of syllables the word has.

How To Find Syllables:

• Count the number of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y) in the word.
• Subtract any silent vowels (like the silent 'e' at the end of a word).
• Subtract 1 vowel from every diphthong.
  • A diphthong is when two volwels make only 1 sound (oi, oy, ou, ow, au, aw, oo, ...).
• The number you are left with should be the number of vowels in the word.

How To Divide A Word Into Syllables:

• Divide off any compound words, prefixes, suffixes, and root words that have vowels.
  • sports/car, house/boat, un/happy, pre/paid, re/write, farm/er, hope/less
• Divide between two middle consonants
  • hap/pens, bas/ket, let/ter, sup/per, din/ner
  • Never split up consonant digraphs as they really represent only one sound ("th", "sh", "ph", "th", "ch", and "wh").
• Usually divide before a single consonant.
  • o/pen, i/tem, e/vil, re/port.
  • The only exceptions are those times when the first syllable has an obvious short sound, as in "cab/in".
• Divide before an "-le" syllable.
  • a/ble, fum/ble, rub/ble, mum/ble

The only exceptions are "ckle" words like "tick/le