Karate Chop Multisyllabic Words - Amy Renee Literacy

Reading multisyllabic words can be tricky to teach students. You need to help them train their brain to see the syllables in big words. This actually can be really fun and exciting! Students want to read big words. They just need to be taught how.

Train your Students to be Word Ninjas

The first thing to do before any new unit is to build hype. Do this by hanging a Word Ninjas in Training poster on your door, and hang up a Word Ninja Master belt in the classroom.

Next, teach them how to split words. There are so many different ways to label words. The simplest is to find the vowels, label the consonants in between them and split the word, making sure to keep digraphs and blends together. Most CORE READING programs have their own way of figuring out how to split words. Use whatever matches your program. After they figure out where to split the words the real fun can begin.

Let them channel their inner ninjas and CHOP the words in half. To do this they need a word strip and a highlighter.

They need to draw over and over aging on the front of the word, about 10 times, then on the back of the word 10 times. Next fold it back and forth. This weakens the paper for chopping. I found three ways to chop the words.

Hold each side of the paper so the student can chop with their hands.
They can hold the paper and pull it forward towards their head and chop it with their head.
They can use their knee to chop.

Let me tell you students LOVE this! They will BEG to chop words!