Silent e and vowel teams

Add one silent e to hop and you get hope: the e makes no sound, but it changes the o.

In the last unit the vowels were short. Now we meet the long vowels. In phonics, the reading method used in many English speaking schools, a long vowel is a vowel that says its own letter name. Long a says ay, long e says ee, long i says eye, long o says oh, and long u says you. English shows these long sounds in two common ways: a silent e at the end of the word, or two vowel letters side by side.

The silent e pattern

Look at these pairs: cap and cape, kit and kite, hop and hope, cub and cube. The pattern is vowel, consonant, e. The final e is silent, but it tells you to say the vowel before it with its long sound. Teachers often call it magic e or bossy e. Without the e, the vowel is short. With the e, the vowel is long. This one rule helps you read hundreds of short words.

Like most English rules, this one has exceptions. Have, give, love, come and some do not follow it. The vowel in these words is not long. Learn them as sight words, words you remember by their shape. They are very common, so you will see them every day and they will become easy.

Vowel teams

A vowel team is two letters that work together to make one vowel sound. Common teams are ee as in see, ea as in eat, ai as in rain, ay as in day, oa as in boat and ow as in snow. In each of these, the sound is the long name of the first letter. Many teachers use an old saying: when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. It is a useful first guess, but it is often wrong. Bread has ea with a short e sound, and great has ea with a long a sound.

The team oo has two common sounds. In moon and food it is a long oo. In book and good it is shorter and more relaxed. When you meet a new word with a vowel team, check the dictionary or listen to it once. After a few hundred words, you will start to feel which sound is likely.