Account
Contact
Search 
1,149

Segmenting: A Critical Skill for Spelling

segmenting featured graphic

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!

What Is Segmenting?

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:

Segmenting the word "ham"

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/.

Segmenting the word "shrimp"

How Do You Teach Segmenting?

A great way to start is with this “Breaking Words Apart” activity.

download graphic for a segmenting 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.

Moving from Segmenting to Spelling

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.

  1. Dictate the word, and then point to the tiles to indicate to the student that it is his turn to use the tiles.
  2. Segmenting - dictate the word "had"
  3. The student segments the word aloud, pulling down a tile for each sound.
  4. Segmenting - student spells with letter tiles
  5. The student reads the word he just spelled. Reading the word enables the student to self-correct if he has made a mistake.
Segmenting - student reads the word he just spelled

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.

For More Help with Teaching Spelling

Segmenting - 20 Best Tips for teaching Reading and Spelling

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.

Share This:

< Previous Post  Next Post >

Leave a Reply

Jennifer

says:

Very helpful!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Jennifer!

Olivia D Barlow

says:

The oral segmenting is critical! This is very helpful information.

Robin

says: Customer Service

We 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 Service

Kate,
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 Service

Segmenting 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 Service

Andrea,
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 Service

I’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 Service

Thank you, Sharyn!

Lisa

says:

Very helpful! Thank you!

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Lisa!

Rachel

says:

Learning to teach spelling by emphasizing the segmenting of words has been so helpful.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Great 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 Service

You’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 Service

Sarah,
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 Service

Liesel,
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 Service

Wonderful 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 Service

Stephanie,
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!!

Jen

says:

Thank you for the great tips