Many people mess up when it comes to pronunciation of different words, the syllables they possess as sometime a short word can have two syllables, and long words can have one syllable. The longest one-syllable word ‘screeched’ consists up of nine letters, on the other hand word like ‘again’ consists of 5 letters has two syllables. With this, the question arises what exactly a syllable is. A syllable is a single unit of written or spoken word that brings out a singular, uninterrupted sound. Either it can be a single letter or the combination of letters, what all it does is, it produces an unbroken sound, which combines in to form different words.
What is an Open Syllable?
Open Syllable is a syllable consisting of only one vowel and that too coming in the end of word. The word ‘open syllable’ is assigned to these type of syllables, as they are not kept close with usage of consonant in the end of words.
As we know that vowel produce open and long sounds, it happens in the case. For instance: ‘go, no he, she’ are the few of the words having open syllable, all have one vowel in it and that too comes in the end of the word.
Examples of Open Syllable Words
The following is a table consisting of several open syllable words for you to understand better.
| Able | Ache | Acorn | Acre |
| Agent | Ago | also | Apex |
| Apricot | April | Area | Asia |
| Auto | Baby | Basics | Basis |
| Beautiful | Being | Bicycle | Broken |
| Bugle | Cargo | Cedar | China |
| Climate | Communicate | Community | Continuous |
| Crazy | Cubic | Demon | Depot |
| Diagram | Dinosaur | Echo | Eclipse |
| Ecology | Edict | Egyptian | Emission |
| Enunciate | emit | equal | Equator |
| equinox | ether | even | Evening |
| evil | female | flavour | Fuel |
| fugitive | funeral | future | Giant |
| gravy | hazy | he | Hello |
| hero | human | humid | Humour |
| icy | idea | iodine | Iowa |
| Irish | item | ivory | January |
| Label | Ladle | Labour | Lady |
| Lazy | Legal | Lion | Maybe |
| menu | Meter | moment | Museum |
| Music | Musician | Navy | Obey |
| October | Order | Ohio | Open |
| Over | Paper | Piano | Pilot |
| Poem | Potato | Prefix | Program |
| Puny | Pupil | Quiet | Radio |
| React | Really | Recent | Recycle |
| rifle | Relation | Roman | Secret |
| Silent | Station | Table | Tiny |
| Total | Triangle | Uniform | unify |
What is a Closed Syllable?
Closed Syllable is the syllable that also consists of one vowel, though that vowel is always bounded up with the consonant in end of the word.
This syllable is referred as ‘closed’ as the consonant follows up the vowel, comes in the end of word, and makes it relatively a shorter sound as compare to the open syllables. On the other hand, vowels in the closed syllable did not sound similar to the name of the letter. Example of closed syllable: ’bob, rob, bed, bat’ are the few of the words having one vowel bound with the consonant in the end.
Examples of Closed Syllable Words
The following is a table consisting of several open syllable words for you to understand better.
| Admit | Atom | Backing | Bassoon |
| Cabin | Canal | Dragon | Fatwa |
| Habit | Laptop | Newman | Radish |
| Salad | Salon | Travel | Denim |
| Despot | Fencing | Fester | Lemon |
| Level | Metal | Never | Pedal |
| Seven | Remnant | Render | Venom |
| Bistro | Clinic | Dinner | Driven |
| Given | Liver | Into | Lintel |
| Pivot | Titbit | Visit | Widow |
| Boxer | Colic | Comet | Comic |
| Doctor | Locker | Mobbing | Robbin |
| Solid | Toxic | Topic | Cupful |
| Crusher | Punish | Rubbish | Stubborn |
| Subtract | Tumbler | Tunnel | Thunder |
| Unfit | Enlist | Contest | Problem |
| Cobweb | Himself | Dentist | Sudden |
| Trumpet | Boston | Magnet | Napkin |
| Mental | Sunset | Invent | Falcon |
| Lobby | Goblet | Admit | Kidnap |
| Flatten | Pencil | Basket | Absent |
| Distant | Pumpkin | Helmut | Velvet |
| Publish | Lapdog | Knapsack | Jungle |
| Goblin | Splendid | bandit | Basket |
| Mitten | Contact | Extent | Witness |
| Lesson | Tennis | Rabbit | Trumpet |
| Muffin | Basil | Happen | In tuck |
| Winter | Hammer | Upset | Member |
| Letter | Japer | Cactus | Kitten |
| Sundog | chipmunk | rusty | index |
Keep exploring EnglishBix for more quality resources on syllables and phonics for your kids.
You can download the following handout for kids to teach then the difference between open and closed syllables.
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