Beyond the Basics Advanced Spelling Rules for Multisyllabic Words

**THIS COURSE IS PENDING FOR CPE POINTS FOR ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONALS; SUBJECT TO AHPC FINAL APPROVAL

Schedule

Duration : Half-Day Workshop

Date	Time	Venue
4 Jun 2027	9.00am – 1.00pm (Singapore Standard Time GMT+0800)	Live Online Training

Corporate Registration Individual Registration

Course Fees & Closing Dates

Registration Type	Closing Date	Fees (S$) /pax
Early Bird	15 Apr 2027	220
Normal	Till Full	260

Overview

This workshop provides participants with advanced strategies for teaching the spelling of multisyllabic words through an Orton-Gillingham approach. Participants will explore the role of syllable structure, affixes, stress, and the elusive schwa in unaccented syllables. Through guided practice and application of S.O.S. (Simultaneous Oral Spelling), teachers will learn how to make multisyllabic encoding more explicit, systematic, and manageable for students.

Course Outline

1. Moving Beyond Single-Syllable Spelling

   Opening Activity: “Why Is This Word So Hard?”
   Present participants with words such as:

   • information
   • comfortable
   • desperate
   • responsibility
   • memorable
   • transportation
   • independent
   • preparation

   Ask: What makes this word difficult to spell?

   Participants identify what they notice:

   • Number of syllables
   • Unaccented syllables
   • Schwa
   • Affixes
   • Vowel choices
   • Consonant doubling
   • Morphological structure
   • Stress patterns

   Multisyllabic spelling requires more than simply “sounding it out.”

2. The Architecture of a Multisyllabic Word

   Explore how teachers can take a large word apart before asking a student to spell it.

   Analyze:

   Prefix + Base + Suffix

   Examples:

   • un + help + ful
   • re + act + ion
   • dis + agree + ment
   • pre + dict + able
   • construct + ion

   Discuss:

   • What is the base word?
   • What affixes are present?
   • Does the base change?
   • What happens at the morpheme boundary?
   • Which parts can be spelled from known rules?

   Activity: Word Dissection

   Teachers work collaboratively to mark the morphological structure of multisyllabic words before encoding them.

3. Advanced Spelling Rules & Generalizations

   Move from isolated rules to applying rules within multisyllabic words.

   Doubling Rule

   • begin → beginning
   • refer → referred
   • admit → admitted

   Discuss the relationship between:

   • syllable structure
   • stress
   • suffixation
   • consonant doubling

   Silent-e

   • hope → hoping
   • create → creating
   • excite → exciting

   Y as a Vowel

   • happy
   • happiness
   • rely
   • reliable

   Soft C and Soft G

   • magic → magical
   • music → musician
   • courage → courageous

   Final Stable Syllables

   • tion
   • sion
   • ous

   Important discussion: These patterns should be taught as part of a system rather than as isolated “rules to memorize.”

4. The Schwa: The “Elusive” Sound

   Why Is Schwa So Difficult?

   Have teachers pronounce:

   • about
   • animal
   • support
   • family
   • separate
   • memory
   • condition

   Ask: What sound do you actually hear?

   Then ask: What letter or letters represent that sound?

   Introduce the concept that the schwa can be represented by multiple vowel spellings.

   Schwa Investigation

   Examples:

   Word	Unaccented Syllable	Possible Spelling
   about	/ə/	a
   pencil	/əl/	il
   support	/ə/	u
   problem	/əl/	le
   family	/ə/	i

   Discuss why phonology alone may not be sufficient for spelling an unaccented syllable.

   Teaching Strategy

   Teach students to ask: “What do I know about this word?”

   rather than: “What sound do I hear?”

   This leads naturally into morphology, etymology, and known word families.

5. S.O.S. for Multisyllabic Words

   Review: What Is S.O.S.?

   Briefly review: Simultaneous Oral Spelling

   Students:

   1. Hear the word.
   2. Repeat the word.
   3. Segment/identify the sounds.
   4. Say the letters while writing.
   5. Read the completed word.

   Then ask: What happens when the word has four, five, or six syllables?

6. Modifying S.O.S. for Multisyllabic Encoding

   Introduce a Multisyllabic S.O.S. Routine.

   Step 1 — Say the Whole Word

   Student says the word naturally.

   responsibility

   Step 2 — Identify the Meaning/Morphemes

   responsible + ity

   Step 3 — Identify Syllables

   re-spon-si-bil-i-ty

   Step 4 — Mark Stress

   Identify the accented syllable(s).

   Step 5 — Analyze Each Syllable

   Determine:

   • vowel sound
   • syllable type
   • spelling pattern
   • schwa
   • affix

   Step 6 — Spell by Meaningful Parts

   Rather than trying to hold the entire word in working memory.

   Step 7 — Write and Check

   Student reads the completed word and checks:

7. Guided Practice: “Build the Word”

   Give teachers increasingly complex words.

   Level 1

   • hopeful
   • careless
   • replay
   • disagreement

   Level 2

   • transportation
   • preparation
   • comfortable
   • responsibility

   Level 3

   • unpredictable
   • misunderstanding
   • communication
   • irresponsibility

   For each word, teachers complete a Multisyllabic Encoding Analysis:

   Word → Meaning → Morphemes → Syllables → Stress → Schwa → Spelling Patterns → S.O.S.

8. Error Analysis: What Is the Student Telling Us?

   Present examples of student spelling:

   • responsability → responsibility
   • comfterble → comfortable
   • definately → definitely
   • invironment → environment
   • seperate → separate

   Ask: Is this simply a “spelling mistake,” or is the error giving us diagnostic information?

   Have teachers determine whether the error reflects difficulty with:

   • phonological analysis
   • syllable division 7
   • vowel representation
   • schwa
   • morphology
   • orthographic patterns
   • working memory
   • retrieval of previously taught information

   Then ask: What would you teach next?

   This reinforces the diagnostic and prescriptive nature of OG instruction.

9. From Rule to Lesson: Putting It Into Practice

   Teachers create a mini OG encoding activity using one multisyllabic pattern.

   They must include:

   • Review
   • Explicit teaching point
   • Guided discovery
   • S.O.S.
   • Multisensory practice
   • Reading/encoding connection
   • Error correction
   • Application in context

   Teachers must explain why they selected the activity based on the student’s error pattern.

10. Closing Activity: “Don’t Just Teach the Word”

    Give participants one challenging multisyllabic word.

    Ask them to answer:

    1. How would I analyze this word?
    2. What would I explicitly teach?
    3. What would I have the student discover?
    4. How would I use S.O.S.?
    5. What errors might I anticipate?
    6. How would I respond to those errors?

Course Objectives

• Analyze the structure of multisyllabic words using syllable and morphological patterns.
• Apply advanced spelling rules and generalizations to multisyllabic words.
• Explore the relationship between stress, schwa, and spelling.
• Identify and analyze common multisyllabic spelling errors.
• Adapt the S.O.S. technique for multisyllabic encoding.
• Develop practical strategies for applying these concepts within diagnostic and prescriptive OG instruction.

Who Can Benefit?

Speech Therapists, special educators, mainstream teachers, therapists, support staff, and parents will benefit from a deeper knowledge of how the brain learns to read and how instruction needs to be more supportive for children with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities.

Speaker

Kim Nau

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