If your student is a beginning or struggling speller, one of the most important things you can do is teach him how to segment words. Knowing how to segment opens up a whole world of literacy. In fact, it’s surprising that this important spelling skill isn’t taught more widely, especially given how easy it is to teach.
This blog post explains what segmenting is, how to teach it, and how to apply it to your spelling lessons.
And be sure to grab the free printable so you can start teaching segmenting right away!
Segmenting is the ability to hear the individual sounds in words. It improves phonological awareness and long-term spelling ability.
Think of segmenting as the opposite of blending. When we speak, we blend sounds together to make a word. In segmenting, we take the individual sounds apart. For example, say the word ham aloud and listen for the three separate sounds:
In the word shrimp, there are five separate speech sounds. Even though there are six letters, the SH phonogram represents the single sound of /sh/.
A great way to start is with this “Breaking Words Apart” activity.
In this segmenting activity, your child will learn how to hear the sounds in short words. He’ll break apart two-sound words and three-sound words so that later he will be able to represent each sound with a written phonogram.
Segmenting can also be taught using tokens, coins, or squares of paper. You can see a demonstration in the video below.
After your child is able to segment words into speech sounds using tokens, move on to segmenting words using letter tiles or the letter tiles app. It is a simple transition: the student still segments the word aloud, but instead of pulling down a token, he pulls down a letter tile for each sound.
There are three basic steps.
After segmenting words with the letter tiles, the student is ready to move on to spelling with paper and pencil. The student can eventually go straight from hearing a dictated word to writing on paper, segmenting the word in his head if necessary.
Find more great tips for teaching spelling in my free report, “20 Best Tips for Teaching Reading and Spelling.”
This report gives you a glimpse into the proven strategies we’ve used to help over 150,000 amazing children (and adults) learn to read and spell.
lily
says:so good I love it
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Lily!
Jennifer
says:Very helpful!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Jennifer!
Olivia D Barlow
says:The oral segmenting is critical! This is very helpful information.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceWe agree, Olivia! Thank you!
Kate
says:I use coins to segment right now but using a letter tile app would be a smooth transition to spelling.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceKate,
All About Spelling has children with small plastic disk tokens at first, so using coins is a great start!
J Martin
says:Segmenting is difficult for *me* to process, so I appreciate how it is broken down in the program.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceSegmenting is important, so I’m glad this was helpful!
Andrea
says:I’ve got a struggling speller in middle school. We have tried segmenting but she says it’s for little kids and often refuses to try. Been a struggle! We will keep working on it.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceAndrea,
Well, you can let your student know that segmenting is important for any aged learner! I segment all the time for words I spell infrequently or words that I know confuse me (for some reason I always want to put a c instead of a g in the word ingredients, so now I silently segment it each time I spell it). Once she learns how to segment well, she will be able to stop doing it out loud, but she has to practice out loud first.
Another benefit of segmenting for any age is it leads to far less misspellings. Errors such as spelling first as frist do not happen when the speller segments and spells sound-by-sound.
Marya
says:I left this on my teaching table and then got covid! When we return to school I’m excited to share it with my students.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceI’m sorry you were ill, Marya. I hope this segmenting activity goes well with your students!
Sharyn Baker
says:A valuable tool to teach children how to decode the mysteries of spelling by breaking them apart in a fun and novel way. Tiles have long held educational value, such as introducing children to single, double and blended sounds, plus using them as ‘whole’ words to assist in sequencing a phrase or sentence.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceThank you, Sharyn!
Lisa
says:Very helpful! Thank you!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceYou’re welcome, Lisa!
Rachel
says:Learning to teach spelling by emphasizing the segmenting of words has been so helpful.
Robin
says: Customer ServiceGreat to hear, Rachel! Segmenting is such an important skill for spellings success.
Karen
says:Thank you for the tips.
Andreana Archambault
says:All about learning press has made a huge impact in my child’s education. Thank you for making such great products!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceYou’re so welcome, Andreana!
Sarah
says:Great content! It’s nice to learn the ‘why’ to be a better teacher. I tended to downplay segmenting, no longer!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceSarah,
I’m glad this was helpful for you, as segmenting is such an important skill for good spelling.
Tammy Roe
says:Such great information
Bonnie Rose Krueger
says:These posts are always great help! Thank you!
Dena Sullivan
says:Great info!
Maria Suarez
says:Really great helpful information.
Liesel
says:I wasn’t sure how my child would do when we started aas but he picked up the segmenting very quickly and was spelling with confidence immediately. Thanks for showing me how to teach this important skill!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceLiesel,
I was excited to hear that your child was confident in spelling right off!
Lauren
says:I’m thankful for AAR and how it’s helping my son become a stronger reader!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceWonderful to hear, Lauren! Thank you.
JoAnna
says:Segmenting has been an important skill for my beginning spellers. Thank you for the article!
Linda
says:Great confirmation!
Sadie
says:Great article!!
Becky
says:Segmenting is such a very important skill! Thanks for the blog!
Jody
says:I love the segmenting on the app. My nephew is able to read words much easier by segmenting the words.
Jay
says:My son has figured out many different small words because AAR used similar techniques for sounding out words. Love love these programs!!!
Stephanie
says:As a speech language pathologist I use AAS to support my students with dyslexia as a structured approach to literacy and I see HUGE improvement! Especially this concept of segmentation, great programs and recommendations to really help kids learn to read!
Robin
says: Customer ServiceStephanie,
Thank you for sharing how All About Spelling is so supportive for your students!
Heather
says:We love AAR!
Carol
says:Great tips!
Chasa
says:My son has such an excellent foundation for reading after completing the AAR program. He went through AAS lvl 1 and is almost finished with lvl 2. This program is perfect!!
julia
says:my boys really understood spelling after going through AAR. I LOVE pairing these two programs together!!