Wild Old Kind Words: Why These Words Break the Rules (and How to Teach Them)
You may have already taught closed syllables — the idea that when a vowel is “closed in” by consonants, it usually makes a short sound.
And most of the time, that works.
But then you run into words like old, find, or wild… and suddenly the rule doesn’t seem to apply anymore.
These are often called Wild Old Kind Words, common words that don’t follow the expected pattern. These are closed in vowels that make a long vowel sound.
These words have been around for a long time, and instead of changing to fit the rules, they’ve held onto their original sounds.
Examples of Wild, Old Words
- comb
- roll, troll, stroll
- mold, told, sold, scold, old, bold, cold, fold, gold
- bolt, colt, dolt, jolt, Holt, molt, volt
- bind, find, mind, wind, blind, grind, hind, kind, rind
- both, don’t, won’t, host, most, post, ghost
- pint, mild, wild, child, blinds
- minded, kindly, kindness, unkind, behind, blindfold, remind
How To Teach Old Wild Words
- These words don’t follow the closed syllable rule
- Teach them as exceptions
- Group them by pattern (old, ind, ost, ild)
- Practice through reading + spelling
Dictation and Reading Practice
Use these sentences to help students recognize and practice Wild Old Words in context. As you read or dictate, pause to notice how the vowel sound doesn’t follow the expected short vowel pattern.
Sentences
- This wild child is a troll.
- Jane will rope the colt to a post.
- Is it cold in summer?
- I combed the old, kind dog with a small comb.
- I wish I had a pint of gold.
- Hold the wild colt.
Teaching Tip:
Have students underline or highlight the Wild Old Words in each sentence. After reading, ask:
- Does the vowel sound match what you expected?
- What makes this word different from a typical closed syllable?
Take It a Step Further
If you’re looking for more structured practice like this, including Old Kind Words and other rule-based patterns, I include these in my Start Here Teaching System.
It’s designed to give you clear, organized materials that follow a logical scope and sequence, so you’re not guessing what to teach next.
You can find the Old Kind Words practice in Scope and Sequence Workbook 2, which is part of that system.
Recommended products
-
Read & Spell Foundations System Consonants & Short Vowels | Structured Literacy for Early Readers
$14.99 -
Scope and Sequence Bundle | Reading & Spelling System
$49.50 -
Short Vowel Rules Bundle | FLOSS, -ck,-tch, -dge Rules | Packets
$15.50 -
VCCV Bundle Packets + Fluency Stories | RABBIT, REPTILE, CANDY and HORNET Words
$20.66
Doesn’t OG teach “Kind old words” ?
I was taught “wild old words,” but sounds like the same thing.
Why aren’t these a 7th syllable type?
These are not a syllable type because there are not enough of these types of words. It’s more of an “exception” category, not a syllable type.
When I look for things to use to teach this I noticed that/oll/ it’s not included in most lists or worksheets etc…
Can you explain why?
Hi Cathy, I have seen these /oll/ words show up in lessons on FLOSS — words like knoll and stroll — however, you have to make sure they are taught as sight words because of the long o sound. In the class I took, these words are on a list called Wild Old Words — a specific list of words that are common but irregular and are taught as patterns (-mb, -oll, -old, -olt, -ind, -nt, -oth, -n’t, -ost, -ild). I like the idea of teaching them as patterns.
I can’t explain why they are on some lists and not others, but that’s why I am partial to OG and the way I was taught OG!
Can anyone help me understand, and explain, why the word “only” is spelled as such? I have a teacher who correctly identified it as a 2-syllable word, but questioned whether the first syllable was really closed or not, as the vowel sound is long. I’ve got my Logic of English book out, and have googled like crazy, but found no answers for this word. Is it that it’s just an Old English word?
Hi Lisa, yes, it is just that the word “only” is a Middle English word. Those tend to be strange, like comb, bolt, pint, etc. Dividing it, “only” would be a VCCV word, divide between the consonants and get on/ly (closed/open syllables). Ultimately, I would include “only” in sight words.
Do “th” words like
Method
Author
Marathon
Ethics
Fall in to this category or is there a better way to teach these words?
Hi Kristen, these words with the digraph th would not be included into Wild, Old, Kind words. These are actually decodable words, but the “th” needs to stay together, so that can be a tricky for students and for teaching. For this reason, I would not give these words until after a student has been taught VCCCV words where we teach them to keep blends and digraphs together. Although they look like simple words, these are actually advanced words.
If you need to teach them as a list, I would highlight the TH and go over the TH staying together as a digraph (students are taught digraphs early, so that’s not new). You could still decode them as VCV words where the TH is one consonant, but you would go over the words noting the TH and so the students can see a pattern. The word “author” also has the vowel team, so a student will need to know the au sounds and that one is more advanced than the others.
Syllable division is a great way for students to learn to break down words and read them, but there are points, like this one, where we teach patterns. You have a great list there showing students how we keep the TH together and we can still divide the word if that helps students see the pattern. If you go that route, VCV division example would look like this: method — starting with the e, we label, VCV where the C is the TH (rather than VCCV where we would just divide between those Cs). Now we have a choice — is the word ME THOD or METH OD — well, I’ve never heard of the word ME thod, but I have heard METH OD (so the word is two closed syllables).
Again, these are advanced and I would not give this list of words until after VCV or VCCCV division so you can teach that the TH stays together. It’s best to start with simple words and progress to words like this. But, it’s not too hard for kids to understand — you just don’t want to do that too early and you want to teach these in groups for the pattern recognition. If possible, I would separate the word author from this list and introduce it at a later time than these other words. And, Marathon is a 3 syllable word, so it is divided twice, but you can still use VCV.
Please let me know any questions my answer may have generated.