Teach your child about syllables by first clapping or tapping as you say the words. After reading the story "Eloise," ask, "How many sounds do you hear in the name El-o-ise?" (three) Then, say your child's name and ask her to clap the number of sounds she hears. Next, try clapping the sounds to some one (bat, school, book), two (pen-cil, base-ball, air-plane), three (vi-o-lin, pine-ap-ple, ra-di-o), four (tel-e-vis-ion, en-ter-tain-ment, el-e-va-tor) or more syllables (hip-po-pot-a-mus, en-cy-clo-ped-i-a). Your child can then look for and cut words out of the headlines in the newspaper that contain one, two or more syllables and make a collage on a page for each number.

-- Susan Rapp, director of the Village Reading Center

Pub Date: 05/23/99