The -er and -est endings

Both are unstressed, so -er is /ər/ rather than the /ɜːr/ of her. The same ending also makes agent nouns: teacher, farmer, baker.

Word endings

-er / -est SUFFIX_ER_01

Strong rule · High reliability · Very common · Early · Reading and spelling

• /ər/ -er: bigger, teacher, farmer
• /ɪst/ -est: biggest, fastest

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 13: Suffixes

Child explanation

Big, bigger, biggest. The -er and -est bits are quiet — you do not say them loudly.

The rule

-er and -est are unstressed suffixes. -er makes comparatives (bigger) and agent nouns (teacher); -est makes superlatives. Both reduce to schwa-like vowels.

What is really going on

Two distinct morphemes sharing a spelling: the comparative -er and the agentive -er. Both are unstressed and both reduce, so for reading they behave identically. The doubling and y-to-i changes apply as with -ing and -ed.

Position in the word

• End of a word — The suffix position. For example: bigger, biggest, teacher.

Examples

Easy examples

bigger, biggest, teacher, farmer, faster

More examples

longer, smaller, taller, hotter, happier, happiest, baker, painter, singer, writer, runner

Pseudo-words

Made-up words that follow the rule. A child who reads these has the pattern rather than the vocabulary.

blimmer, shuggest, fraper

Contrast pairs

• her versus teacher — Stressed /ɜːr/ versus unstressed /ər/, same two letters.
• happy versus happier — The y changes to i before the suffix.

Teacher note

Point out that the -er in teacher and the -er in bigger look the same and mean quite different things. That is a child's first useful encounter with the idea that spelling encodes meaning rather than only sound, and it prepares the ground for prefix work.

Learn these first

• ER, IR and UR — er / ir / ur — Three spellings, one sound. For reading this is easy; for spelling it is the hardest thing in English, and the difference should be said out loud.

Related rules

• ER, IR and UR — er / ir / ur — Three spellings, one sound. For reading this is easy; for spelling it is the hardest thing in English, and the difference should be said out loud.
• Y becomes I before a suffix — y + suffix → i — Happy becomes happier, cry becomes cried, baby becomes babies. A reliable change, and one that explains a lot of otherwise odd-looking words.
• The -ing ending — -ing — One sound, and the root usually unchanged — but with three spelling changes to recognise: drop the e, double the consonant, or neither.
• Schwa — any vowel letter, unstressed — The most common vowel sound in English, spelled with any vowel letter at all. It is why decoding every vowel fully produces a word nobody says.

• Previous in Word endings: The -ing ending — -ing — One sound, and the root usually unchanged — but with three spelling changes to recognise: drop the e, double the consonant, or neither.
• Next in Word endings: The -ly ending — -ly — Adds a syllable and turns a describing word into how something is done. The root almost never changes.
• All reading rules

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