- Hello, scholars.

Welcome to Read, Write, Roar.

Today, we're gonna be focusing on a big question.

How can we care for the Earth?

We're gonna be working on open and closed syllables.

We're gonna be reading texts about caring for our planet, and then we're gonna brainstorm some amazing sentences.

Now don't forget, you're gonna need something to write on, like maybe scrap piece of paper, or an envelope, and something to write with, like maybe a crayon or a pencil.

Come on, and join us for Read, Write, Roar.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by the Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan, and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation.

Additional support by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome, readers.

When I'm reading, and I come to a tricky word, one of the first strategies I like to use is to break the word apart into syllables, or word parts.

This really helps me read new words.

To be able to break a word into syllables, it's important for us to know the types of syllables we'll find in words.

Our goal for today is to understand what an open syllable is.

We'll also use open syllables to read words with more than one syllable.

Let's start by reminding ourselves what a syllable is.

A syllable is a word part with only one vowel sound.

The letters, A, E, I, O, U, and often the letter Y, usually make a vowel sound.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that when we hear a syllable spoken, or we see a syllable that's written, we'll only hear, and see one vowel sound.

Now that's a little confusing, because sometimes we'll see a syllable with two written vowels, like A, Y.

This can only happen when the vowels are working together in a team to make one vowel sound.

A, Y, for example, can say the long A sound, A.

Since the vowels work together to make one sound, they can be in the same syllable.

Now we've learned that a closed syllable is a special kind of syllable.

It has one vowel followed by one or more consonants.

Closed syllables only have one written vowel.

They won't have a vowel team.

Open syllables, which are our focus for today, are similar to closed syllables, but not exactly the same.

They also have one written vowel.

They won't have vowel teams either, but that one written vowel is not followed by one or more consonants.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, it means when we see that open syllable, the vowel will be at the very end of the syllable.

The syllable won't be closed off by a consonant.

Why does this matter?

Do you know?

When we talked about closed syllables, we learned that the vowels in closed syllables usually make a short vowel sound.

Now open syllables are different.

When we read open syllables, we usually make the long vowel sound for the vowels that we see in that syllable.

These are our long vowel sounds, A, E, I, O, U, or U, this one has two.

And the Y also has two.

It can make the long I, or E. When we're reading a word, and we find an open syllable, we can try to read it first by using the long vowel sound.

Let's look at a word, and see if we can find the open syllable in this word.

Here is our word.

This word is idea, idea.

I've already separated this word into the syllables.

The first one is I, the second one is D, and the last one is U.

Which of these syllables are open syllables?

Do you have an idea?

Well, let's look at the first syllable, and see if it fits our rules for open syllables.

I see the letter I in the first syllable.

Is that one written vowel?

It is.

And is that vowel not followed by one or more consonants?

It isn't.

The I is at the very end of the syllable.

In this syllable, it's actually the only letter there.

So this is an example of an open syllable.

That's why when we read the word idea, we say I for that first syllable.

Idea.

Now let's look at the second one.

Is this an open syllable?

What do you think?

Does it have one vowel?

It does, the letter E. Is that vowel not followed by one or more consonants?

It isn't.

The E is at the end of the syllable.

That makes this another open syllable.

That's why when we read this syllable, we say D with the long E sound.

Idea.

Now let's look at our last syllable, the letter A.

Do you think this is an open syllable?

It is, because it has one vowel that is not followed by one or more consonants.

There's only a vowel here, there are no consonants at all.

So this is an open syllable.

You might've noticed something about this syllable though.

Listen to how we pronounce this syllable in the word.

Idea, idea.

Is the A making the long A sound?

No, that would sound like idea, which is not how we pronounce this word.

Remember, open syllables usually have vowels that make long vowel sounds, but sometimes they won't.

Sometimes you'll hear that vowel in a long, and in an open syllable making the U sound instead of a long vowel sound.

Do you have any ideas about how to protect our planet?

Now that we have practiced finding open syllables in a word, let's practice reading words with open syllables.

As we start to divide words into syllables to read them more easily, there are some tips that we can follow.

First, we have to remember that every syllable has one vowel, or vowel team.

Another way to say that is that each syllable has one, and only one vowel sound.

We can make sure that the syllables we find have only one vowel sound by placing a dot under each vowel.

Do you see the vowels in this first word?

What are they?

First, I see the letter I.

And what other vowel do we see?

The letter I.

Then we can underline any vowel team that we find.

Remember, a vowel team is where two or more letters work together to make a vowel sound, like E, E, that can make the E sound.

Do you see any vowel teams in this word?

No, these vowels aren't working together.

They're separated, and they're going to make their own sounds.

Now we have to decide where we're going to divide this word into syllables.

We can divide a syllable between two consonants, or between a consonant and a vowel.

Sometimes we'll divide after a consonant, and before a vowel.

And sometimes we'll divide after a vowel, and before a consonant.

Let's try that with this word.

We know that the first syllable will have the letter I, because each syllable needs a vowel, and the letter L is not a vowel.

So it can't be a syllable by itself.

Then we have another consonant, the M. We know that the letter I is going to start its own syllable, so we're stuck with this letter M here in the middle, and we have to decide which syllable it's going to be part of.

Will it join the first syllable, like that, and make a closed syllable here?

Or will we separate between the vowel in the consonant instead, and make an open syllable here?

Since we've been reading words with open syllables, let's try it this way first, and see if this works.

All right, read with me.

Lie, mit, lime it, lime it.

That doesn't sound like a word that I know.

Let's try this again, and instead of making an open syllable with the long vowel sound here, let's make a closed syllable, and try the short I sound instead.

Read with me.

Lim, it.

Limit.

Limit is a word that I know.

When you limit something, you decide how much of something can be used.

We can limit the amount of energy we use to protect our planet.

One way you can do this is by turning the lights off when you're not using them.

When we read the word limit, we used the short vowel sound for this closed syllable, and we had to try it two ways, dividing first between the vowel and the consonant, and then between this consonant and the next vowel to find a real word.

Let's try this again with the next word.

We're going to start by finding the vowels.

What are they?

First, we see the vowel, O, and then we see the vowel, A.

Are these part of a vowel team that we should underline?

They aren't.

They're separate, and they're going to make their own vowel sounds.

So now we just need to decide where we're going to divide.

We know that the S and the O have to stick together, because O has to be part of the first syllable, since each syllable is going to have a vowel sound.

Then we have a consonant followed by our next vowel, which has to be in a new syllable, because we can't have two vowel sounds in the same syllable.

So we're stuck again with one consonant in the middle.

Well, again, I think that we should try by reading an open syllable first using the long O sound for this vowel.

And then if that doesn't work, instead of separating between the vowel and the consonant, we can flip them, and separate between the consonant L and the next vowel.

So let's start this way.

Read with me.

So, lar, solar.

Is that a word that we know?

Solar is a real word.

It describes the energy that comes from the sun.

We call solar energy clean energy, because it's good for the planet.

I have a really cool bird feeder that has a light that runs on solar energy.

Did you notice when we read this word, the first time, we got it correct?

If we had heard that word, and it hadn't sounded like a word that we knew, we could have slid the L over to the first syllable to try the word again, and we could have read the O with the short vowel sound like this, sol, ar, solar.

That wouldn't have made a word that we know, but it's good to remember that if what you read doesn't sound like a real word, you can just flip that consonant between the syllables to make the word a real word, changing the vowel sound that you're using.

Great work today reading words with closed and open syllables.

While you're reading, be on the lookout for these different syllable types.

And remember that they can help you read new and challenging words.

(soft music) Aaniin, readers.

Today, we're gonna continue reading Coyote Soundbite, A Poem For Our Planet, written by John Agard, and illustrated by Piet Grobler.

My friends, we have special permission to read this from Lantana Publishing, off we go.

So before we get started, we need to be thinking about our focus, friends.

Our focus is how are we reacting quickly to the text that we're reading?

Those reactions make us think about what's going on in the story, and help us to have a deeper understanding and comprehension.

So far in the story, we have Coyote here who is off to a conference of all of the goddesses.

Coyote has worn his wife's best beautiful dress, and is now ready to listen to the next goddess speak.

Are you ready?

Ambe, let's go.

All right.

Thinking about reacting to text.

"Next to speak was Brigid, keeper of the wells, whose waters spring from the womb of Earth.

A daughter of Moon Mother, Brigid tends, the fire for the storyteller's word weaving.

But with their forest hideouts disappearing, the fairy people are up and leaving."

Oh no, I'm having a reaction.

Hm, I don't think I like it that the fairy people are leaving, do you?

Let's keep going.

"Brigid went on to welcome, live and direct, from the Andes where roam the beautiful llama, none other than the Earth goddess, Panchamama.

Panchamama was in no mood for the endless talk.

Panchamama was all for walking the walk.

She was one Earth mama who'd tell it like it was.

These humans forget how Mother Earth grieves when their rainforests weep in their own ash, and her oceans are garlanded in trash.

Panchamama's words made the animals reply with a chorus of howls, shrieks, screeches, resounding roars that pierced the ears of sky."

Ooh, this is making me really sad.

How about you?

Mhm.

(paper whooshing) All right, let's keep going.

See what other kinds of reactions we have.

"That was when the chair goddess Darana invited the gathering to ask any questions.

A heavy silence fell.

Neither question nor answer.

The silence felt like forever and ever.

Then Coyote, of course, thought it clever to come up with some sort of a suggestion.

Excuse me, ladies, forgive my interjection, but from my study of the human breed, I'll say a soundbite is what you ladies need."

A soundbite?

What is a soundbite?

I'm so confused.

What does he mean by a soundbite?

Readers, you can always jot down your reactions to your text as you read.

(upbeat music) Writers, today is our last day for our acrostic poem, POW.

P, pick apart the prompt and plan.

O, organize, W, write.

And I hope you don't mind, I've gotten started with some of the writing.

When we organized our writing, we went ahead and said that there were three ways that we could help care for the Great Lakes.

One that we could reuse bags.

Two, work with scientists, and three, we could help clean up and pitch in to make a difference.

Now, I've gone ahead and started our paragraphs with transition words or phrases.

For example, one way, phrase, transitional phrase.

One way I can care for the Great Lakes is to bring my own bags to the store.

So that's the thing I can do.

Now what happens?

Many plastic bags end up in the lakes.

When I reuse bags, the store uses less bags, and they don't end up in the water.

Excellent, details and evidence, let's keep going.

Another way is also a transitional phrase that we can use to start our next paragraph.

Another way I can care for the Great Lakes is to help scientists.

I can find a science citizen program in my town, and work with them to take care of the Great Lakes.

Amazing.

Okay, friends.

Now, the third thing is that we need to pitch in, help clean up to make a difference.

How could I start that last or next paragraph?

Well, I'm thinking of the transition.

A final way, or the final way I can help.

What do you think?

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

Okay.

So the final way I can, now let's repeat what our job is.

The final way I can care for the Great Lakes is by pitching in to help make a difference, right?

The final way I can care for the Great Lakes is, and then I'll have to write something about pitching in, right, friends?

Okay.

All right, let's get started writing.

The final way I can, maybe care for the Great Lakes?

Yes, care for the great, now, remember, that's a proper noun, we got to start it with a capital letter.

Great Lakes is to, hm.

Is to what?

Well, let's go back to our introduction, to our beginning paragraph, and think about how we can, what it is that we need to do.

The final way I can care for the Great Lakes is to help clean up, that's right.

Do you see how by rereading, I helped remember what the rest of my sentence was going to be?

Okay, let's write it down.

Next, help clean up.

All right, now we have what we're gonna do.

Now we need, mhm, the details.

Let's think.

I'm thinking that sometimes when people are at the park, or at places, they forget to pick up all of their trash, and that's yeah, how things can get kind of nasty and dirty, friends.

So how could I put that into a sentence?

Hmm.

Sometimes people forget to pick up their trash.

Simple as that, let's write it, ambe.

Sometimes people forget to pick up.

Ooh, their, is that like the place, or the, people.

Okay, people.

Their trash.

Mm, what happens when people forget to pick up their trash?

Yeah, it makes the park dirty, doesn't it?

Let's write that down, okay.

This makes our parks dirty.

Mm, dirt.

There we go.

(upbeat music) Writers, remember that you can always go back to your first paragraph to help you reread, and think about what should go next, either for your paragraphs, or your sentences.

Scholars, you've done such an amazing job today.

You've worked really hard on open and closed syllables.

You've read a poem about caring for our planet with me, and you have made some amazing sentences for our persuasive writing.

Remember, you can always use what you've learned about open and closed syllables while you read and write.

(speaking in foreign language) We'll see you next time on Read, Write, Roar.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by the Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan, and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation.

Additional support by, and by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music)