When I went to school we were taught syllables and in our language arts book we are to teach syllables, but I really don't understand why. Does anyone know the real reason?

Hi
Think about when you want to spell a really long word that you haven't heard of before / spelt before. Take "Supercallifragilisticexpialid ocious" for example (and I'm not sure I spelt that right!) How would you attack it? Would you "say it slowly"? Of course not! You would break it down into the smallest possible chunks (Su/per/cal/i/frag/il/is/tic/ex/pi/al/i/do/cious - of course if you already know how to spell super you could write that part as a known word then get on with the rest).
Which is why we teach our students how to break words down into syllables to make the words more managable. It also helps to learn orthographic features of words for example that when you hear 'ing' in a word you spell it "i-n-g" and that the a sound at the end of 'tig/er' / 'moth/er' / 'com/pu/ter' is represented by "er".
Hope this helps
Rebecca

[kali]

It is a crucial prereading skill for students to have. Children need to be able to segment syllables and rhyme if they are going to learn to read. Being able to do those things are essesial instruction for K-2 students.

I would like to add that some of our spelling rules involve syllables. Vowels can say their long sounds at the end of syllables (I, go, open, unable,...). Every syllable has a vowel. Certain rules apply to phonogram use in a certain syllable ie: double last consonant before adding suffix when accent is on last syllable of base word (for got' ten, oc cur' rence,... not: en' ter ing, prof' it a ble); and sh is used at beginning or end of base word, at end of syllable, but not at the beginning of a syllable after the first one except for the ending ship.