The Role of Compound Words in Literacy Learning
Discover how learning compound words enhance children’s future reading and writing skills, and also develop their critical thinking.
What happens when you put the word ‘dragon’ and the word ‘fly’ together? You get a new word, ‘dragonfly’. The word ‘dragonfly’ is an example of a compound word. When children are in kindergarten, they will be introduced to the concept of compound words.
Compound words are an essential part of helping build your child’s vocabulary and understanding of language structures. The process of identifying, constructing, and deconstructing compound words engages children in critical thinking and problem-solving. When children can break down compound words into their individual components, it helps them recognize familiar words and decipher new ones.
They are especially beneficial as children move into higher elementary grade levels and need to be able to read and spell larger amounts of text.
In this article, we discuss the different types of compound words and the ways activities teaching compound words help bolster young children’s literacy development.
Ox & Owl Post Overview
Bright
Beginnings
Compound words are building blocks for vocabulary expansion, improved reading fluency, comprehension, and
writing proficiency.
They are also wonderful tools for encouraging critical thinking skills.
Common Challenges
Compound words have varied forms, which can confuse learners as they encounter closed, open, and hyphenated compounds, each with its own rules and conventions, adding complexities to language acquisition.
Literacy
Toolbox
By immersing children in the world of compound words through fun hands-on activities, we empower them with more tools in their literacy toolbox and encourage a lifelong love of language learning.
What is a compound word?
A compound word is formed when two or more words are combined or used in combination to create a new word with a new meaning.
Compound Word Examples:
- Two words combined: humming + bird = hummingbird
- Three Words combined: never + the + less = nevertheless
Types of Compound Words
Compound words are built by combining stand-alone words together in some format.
There are three different types of compound words:
- Closed
An example is the word ‘moonlight’ - Hyphenated
An example is rainbow-coloured - Open
An example is the word ‘swimming pool’
Bright Beginnings
Compound Words Develop Pre-Literacy Skills
Compound words play a role in enhancing both reading and writing skills by offering a multitude of benefits to learners. Here’s a breakdown of how the understanding of compound words contributes to literacy development:
1. Vocabulary Expansion:
Learning compound words helps build children’s vocabulary. Instead of memorizing individual words, learners grasp the interconnectedness of language, discovering new terms by understanding the combination of familiar ones. Having a wide range of exposure and knowledge of vocabulary is important for all literacy components.
2. Improved Reading Fluency:
As readers become proficient in recognizing and understanding compound words, their reading fluency improves. They can navigate through texts more swiftly, focusing on comprehension rather than getting bogged down by individual words. Fluency is a key component in developing overall reading skills and fostering a love for reading.
3. Writing Precision:
Compound words make writing more exciting. Instead of using long phrases, kids can use compound words to make their writing clearer and more fun. In writing, the use of compound words allows for more precise and concise expressions. This not only helps kids share their thoughts better but also lets their creative spark shine, giving them an understanding of how words fit together like puzzle pieces.
4. Critical Thinking Skills:
The process of identifying, constructing, and deconstructing compound words engages learners in critical thinking. It prompts them to analyze the relationship between individual components, deducing meanings and making connections. These cognitive skills are transferable to various aspects of reading and writing, fostering analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
5. Phonological Awareness
Compound words help children build their phonological awareness skills.
Phonological awareness is the ability to tune in to the rhythm and various sound patterns of a spoken language. This awareness allows us to have a better understanding of how language works, for example, that sentences are made up of separate words and that words can be made up of more than one syllable. Phonological awareness develops through speaking and hearing. No written text is required.
As children develop their phonological awareness skills, they begin to identify, blend, segment, and manipulate the sounds of a spoken language. Children start with these skills by practicing at the word level and syllable level, which contain larger chunks of sounds.
When they move into the onset-rime and phoneme level (smallest sounds that make up words), these skills often get referred to as phonemic awareness skills. All of these listening skills lay the foundation for becoming a strong reader and writer.
The Role of Compound Word Activities in Fostering Phonological Awareness
Here are some ways practicing with compound words enhances your learner(‘s) phonological awareness development.
Syllable Awareness
Compound words often consist of two or more syllables. By engaging with compound words, children naturally gain exposure to multisyllabic structures. For instance, combining “cup” and “cake”, which are both words containing one syllable, creates the compound word “cupcake”, now a two-syllable word. This exposure enhances their awareness of syllable division and the rhythmic patterns present in words.
Blending Practice at the Word Level
Constructing compound words involves blending at the word level to form a new word. For example, combining “butter” and “fly” creates the compound word “butterfly.” This blending exercise helps children develop the ability to smoothly merge sounds, an essential skill for reading and decoding unfamiliar words.
Segmenting Practice at the Word Level
When children deconstruct compound words, breaking them down into their individual components, they are practicing segmenting skills at the word level. For example, in the compound word “rainbow,” children learn to identify and differentiate the sounds of “rain” and “bow.” This segmentation practice starts them on the path of isolating sounds within words, a fundamental aspect of phonological awareness.
Manipulation Skills at the Word Level
Working with compound words encourages children to manipulate sounds within words. They can experiment with adding or removing components to create new words or modify existing ones. For instance, the word “sun” can be combined with “flower” to create the word “sunflower”, or it could be combined with “shine” to create the word “sunshine”. This manipulation fosters a deeper understanding of how changes in sound contribute to alterations in word meaning.
WordPlay Zone
Sing a Counting Song About Ants
Why not sing The Ants Go Marching with your little learner(s)? This is a classic song that helps teach numbers and rhyme.
Get the lyrics for the song The Ants Go Marching and other classic nursery rhymes and songs!
Guess the Compound Riddle
Where ants go marching ten by ten,
You’ll find me gleefully following them.
A tasty snack, a delicious treat,
Ants are what I love to eat.
What Am I?
Common Challenges
One challenge with compound words lies in their varied forms, which can confuse learners as they encounter closed, open, and hyphenated compounds, each with its own rules and conventions. This variation introduces complexity to the process of acquiring vocabulary and mastering language comprehension, requiring a nuanced understanding of these different structures.
1. Closed Compound Words:
A closed compound word is made when two separate words are combined to form a single new word. For example, the word ‘toothbrush’ is formed by the words ‘tooth’ and ‘brush’. These compound words commonly depict tangible concepts or physical objects, highlighting the merging of the distinct elements.
2. Open Compound Words:
An open compound word is made when two or more words make a new word, and the words retain a space between them. For example, the words ‘ice cream’, ‘full moon’, and ‘seat belt’. Open compounds are prevalent in everyday language and often describe familiar experiences or items.
3. Hyphenated Compound Words:
A hyphenated compound word is made where the words are joined together with a hyphen. For example, the words ‘part-time’ and ‘sister-in-law’, as well as finger-painted and sunflower-shaped. This category encompasses a wide range of compound words, from phrases expressing relationships to those emphasizing qualities or characteristics.
It can sometimes be tricky to know when or when not to use a hyphen. The use of a hyphen can even change the meaning of a sentence.
For example, compare the phrases ‘stay at home mom’ vs ‘stay-at-home-mom’. The first one might be read as someone telling their mom to stay home, whereas, the second one clearly helps us readers know the work of this mom is full-time care of her children and home.
For higher elementary grade level students, here is a video to help them understand why and when hyphenating words is helpful. You can also use this guide on hyphen use to learn more about when or when not to use a hyphen.
While compound words can present a challenge, they also offer an opportunity for growth and discovery. Through exploration, experimentation, and persistence, children can unlock the secrets of compound words and broaden their linguistic skills.
Literacy Toolbox
Teach Compound Words Through Interactive Literacy Activities
Compound words are tools that open doors to a richer understanding of language. Teaching and practicing compound words with children not only enhances their vocabulary but also helps build foundations for future reading and writing. Engaging literacy games and activities transform learning compound words into a playful learning experience, making it an enjoyable challenge for young minds.
Closed Compound Word Scavenger Hunt
Go on a classroom compound word scavenger hunt with your students. What other compound words can they find?
You can download our freebie from our post dedicated to providing creative and fun literacy-focused scavenger hunts for kids.
Read Alouds – Compound Word Picture Books
Reading is a great way to introduce children to compound words. There are some fun picture books focused on bringing your child or student’s attention to compound words.
A couple of books to try are If You Were a Compound Word by Trisha Speed Shaskan and Once there was a Bull…Frog by Rick Walton.
Find More Closed Compound Word Activities, Like Fun Compound Word Riddles!
Click over to our post with engaging activities for children to practice identifying, constructing, and deconstructing closed compound words.
7 Compound Word Activities for Early Learners
Tiny Steps, Big Reads: Everyday Literacy Hacks
Discover the magic in the mundane, with literacy hacks that fit right into your life – because big reads start with the smallest steps.
Bath Time Compound Word Exploration
Each time your little one takes a bath, draw their attention to one compound word.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- It’s time to get your little one into the bathtub. Draw your child’s attention to the fact that bathtub is a word made up of two separate words, “bath’ and “tub”, to form the word “bathtub”.
- Where is the bathtub? It’s in the bathroom!
- It’s time to scrub your child clean, don’t forget to wash their armpits, earlobes, fingertips, and kneecaps.
- Time to splish and splash. Why is that a tugboat, submarine, and sailboat I see?
- Your child is clean and out of the bath. You ask them to look at their toenails. Yep, they are too long and need a snip!
- Time to brush your little one’s hair with a hairbrush. Hmmm, is it almost time to get a haircut?
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I’m happy you’re here!
Hi, I’m Julie, the passionate creator of Ox & Owl Literacy. I enjoy empowering families and educators with wonderful resources to inspire fun, imaginative, and joyful learning opportunities for young kiddos. You’ll find lots of recommended books, reading resources, and creative learning activities on this site aiming to help children fall in love with language, books, reading, and the transformational power of stories.
