Scooping a word is the same as dividing the word into syllables.

Syllables can be divided by saying them orally or by using a pencil and paper. If we orally divide a word into syllables, we usually clap the word out. For example, if we orally divided the syllables of dislike, we would clap out ‘dis’ and ‘like,’ and that would be two claps. If we divided the syllables on paper, we would place a slash between the ‘s’ and ‘l’ in

the word ‘dis/like.’

So rather that placing a slash, there is another way to show the number of syllables in a word, and that is to scoop the syllables. This is how that would look: d i s I I k e. Not dividing the word with a slash avoids the look of an extra letter in the word, and it also avoids the idea of students thinking the word has only one syllable since there is just one slash. With the idea of scooping with the finger or with a pencil, students

can feel and see the scoops which in turn matches the number of syllables.

This packet contains 64 task cards that allow students to practice scooping words with one closed syllable and one vowel-consonant-e syllable.