e_e

The rarest of the five. These, theme, Pete, eve — a handful of words, taught last and briefly.

Magic e / silent e

e_e MAGIC_E_E_01

Word-family rule · Medium reliability · Rare · Intermediate · Reading

• /iː/ long e: these, theme, eve

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 6: Magic e

Child explanation

These and theme use an e at each end. There are not many words like this.

The rule

E, one consonant, then a silent e gives long e. The pattern is real but the set of words is small, because English prefers ee and ea for this sound.

What is really going on

e_e is the least productive VCe pattern. Long /iː/ is normally spelled ee, ea, or final y, and the VCe form survives mainly in a few Latin and Greek borrowings and in names. Teaching it takes ten minutes and prevents a child stalling on these, which is common.

Examples

Easy examples

these, theme, eve, Pete

More examples

complete, compete, delete, concrete, extreme, scheme, athlete

Exceptions

• were and there: were, there, where. Both look like e_e and are neither long e nor regular.

Contrast pairs

• these versus then — Long versus short e.
• theme versus them

Teacher note

Cover it last and keep it short. The value is almost entirely in the word these, which is frequent and which children otherwise read as /θez/ or stall on.

Learn these first

• a_e — a_e — The commonest magic e pattern and the most reliable. Cake, name, made, late — long a with a silent e two letters on.
• i_e — i_e — Bike, time, nine, ride. Highly reliable, with give and live as the two exceptions children meet earliest.

Related rules

• Magic e — v_e — A vowel, one consonant, then e. The e says nothing and the vowel says its name. Reliable — as long as the child knows what it does not cover.
• EE — ee — Long e, in any position, with essentially no exceptions. The single most reliable vowel team in English.
• EA and its three sounds — ea — /iː/ in beach, /e/ in bread, /eɪ/ in great. The first genuinely variable vowel team most children meet.
• The letter E — e — The most common letter in English, and often the one doing the least: short /e/, long /iː/, schwa, or completely silent.

• Previous in Magic e / silent e: u_e — u_e — Two sounds, not one: /juː/ in cube and mule, /uː/ in rule and June. Which one depends on the consonant before it.
• Next in Magic e / silent e: The other jobs of silent e — -ve, -ce, -ge, -le, -se — A final e also blocks a word ending in v or u, keeps c and g soft, props up a consonant-le syllable, and sometimes just marks a word as English.
• All reading rules

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