Rules
 

The Problem with the Rule

  1. Every syllable has one vowel sound.

 A diphthong has two vowels.  The "OW" sound as in the word
out has two vowel sounds "ah" and "oo" that come together. 

  2. The number of vowel sounds equals the number of syllables.

 See above.

  3. When you hyphenate a word hyphenate between syllables.

See Rule 5.

 4.  Never hyphenate a one syllable word such as "go,  jump,  in,  the, and lake."

  5. Consonant digraphs and blends are never separated.

blend-ing not blen-ding.
clash-ing not clas-hing,
march-ing not marc-hing
fast-ing not fas-ting

See Rule 3.  In speech the word blending is properly pronounced as two syllables: blen ding.

  Hyphenate compound words between the words as in:

book-store
book-case

but notice the word notice is not not-ice nor is

Sheraton, she-rat-on.:

 Hyphenate words between the prefix and the root word or the root word and the suffix as in:
 mis-understanding or misunderstand-ing or misunder-standing

 When two or more consonant come together, hyphenate between the first two consonants as in blis-ter,

 The Rules about compound words, consonant blends, prefixes, and suffixes supercede: 
Home-schoolers not Homes-choolers (Compound)
 streng-then not stren-gthen,  (ng is consonant blend)
 trans-atlantic not tran-satlantic
 friend-ship.not frien-dship 

 Divide a word so that the syllable either at the end of a line or at the beginning of the next has at least three letters.

The following words should not be divided:  divided, about, above, below, around, nickel, taxi, major, minor, cabin,

 In other words, words of five or fewer letters should never be hyphenated because you must have at least three letters at the end of the line and at least three at the beginning, and three and three is six, and five is less than six.