When my first-grade student stopped at a word he didn’t recognize, I asked, “What type of syllable is it?” Because he recognized the d at the end of the word, he replied “Closed,” scrunched down in his chair, and read the short vowel word “Held.” He scrunched down because he remembered how it felt to be the short vowel in a closed syllable. It is common for my students to sit tall for long vowels and scrunch for short ones because acting out the syllable types cements their learning.

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