The -sion and -cian endings

-cian is /ʃən/ like -tion. -sion is /ʃən/ after a consonant and /ʒən/ after a vowel — mission versus vision.

Word endings

-sion / -cian SUFFIX_SION_01

Useful pattern · High reliability · Common · Advanced · Reading and spelling

• /ʃən/ after a consonant: mission, tension, musician
• /ʒən/ after a vowel: vision, decision, television

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 13: Suffixes

Child explanation

Mission says /mishun/. Vision says /vizhun/ — a softer, buzzier sound, because there is a vowel before the sion.

The rule

-cian is /ʃən/. -sion is /ʃən/ when a consonant comes before it and /ʒən/ when a vowel does — which is a real rule, and a usable one.

What is really going on

The /ʃ/ versus /ʒ/ split is conditioned by the preceding segment and is reliable: after /l/, /n/ and /s/ the suffix is unvoiced, after a vowel it is voiced. -cian is reserved almost entirely for words naming a person: musician, magician, electrician, politician.

Position in the word

• End of a word — Always word-final. For example: mission, vision, musician.

Examples

Easy examples

mission, vision, musician, magician

More examples

tension, session, passion, mansion, decision, television, explosion, occasion, electrician, politician

Contrast pairs

• mission versus vision — Consonant before versus vowel before.
• tension versus television

Teacher note

Teach after -tion is automatic. The -cian-means-a-person observation is worth making — musician, magician, electrician, optician — because it is a meaning pattern as well as a spelling one, and children remember it.

Learn these first

• The -tion ending — -tion — One chunk, one sound: /ʃən/. Read it whole and four-syllable words become manageable.

Related rules

• The -tion ending — -tion — One chunk, one sound: /ʃən/. Read it whole and four-syllable words become manageable.
• The -cial and -tial endings — -cial / -tial — Both are /ʃəl/ — special, partial, official. Another place where ci and ti spell /ʃ/.
• The letter S — s — S says /s/ at the start of a word and /z/ surprisingly often elsewhere — including in most plurals, which children read before anyone explains it.
• Latin spelling patterns — -tion / -sion / prefixes / silent scholarly letters — The -tion and -sion endings, the common prefixes, and the letters Renaissance scholars inserted into debt and doubt to show a Latin root.

• Previous in Word endings: The -tion ending — -tion — One chunk, one sound: /ʃən/. Read it whole and four-syllable words become manageable.
• Next in Word endings: The -ture ending — -ture — Pronounced /tʃər/ — picture, nature, future. The t is not /t/, which is why letter-by-letter decoding fails here.
• All reading rules

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