DGE after a short vowel

The /dʒ/ sound spelled for a short vowel. Bridge, badge and judge take dge; large, huge and change take ge.

Trigraphs

dge TRIGRAPH_DGE_01

Strong rule · High reliability · Common · Intermediate · Reading and spelling

• /dʒ/ j: bridge, badge, judge

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 11: Advanced Patterns & Silent Letters

Child explanation

Bridge, badge and judge all have a short vowel, so they need dge. Large and huge do not.

The rule

Immediately after a short vowel at the end of a word, /dʒ/ is spelled dge. After a long vowel, a vowel team or a consonant, it is spelled ge.

What is really going on

The same short-vowel convention as ck and tch. The d in dge is doing the job the doubled consonant does elsewhere: marking the preceding vowel as short. The e is not silent-e marking a long vowel — it is required because English does not end a word in j, and because g needs the e to stay soft.

When this rule works

• A single short vowel directly precedes the /dʒ/.
• The sound ends the word.

When this rule does not work

• The vowel is long: huge, cage, page, stage.
• A consonant intervenes: large, change, hinge, plunge.
• The /dʒ/ is at the start of a word, where it is spelled j or g.

Examples

Easy examples

bridge, badge, judge, edge, fudge

More examples

hedge, ledge, dodge, lodge, budge, nudge, smudge, ridge, pledge, wedge

Pseudo-words

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

nadge, flidge, prudge

Contrast pairs

• badge versus cage — Short vowel takes dge; long vowel takes ge.
• budge versus huge
• edge versus large — Short vowel takes dge; a consonant before takes ge.

Teacher note

Teach alongside tch and ck. It is also worth showing children that the e in dge, ge and ce is doing a different job from the e in cake — it is keeping the consonant soft, not lengthening the vowel. That is the moment silent e stops being one rule and becomes several, and it prevents the mis-reading of have, give and dance later.

Learn these first

• Soft G before E, I and Y — ge / gi / gy — G is often /dʒ/ before e, i and y — but get, give, girl and gift all break it. Far less reliable than soft c, and the difference must be taught.
• The five short vowels — a e i o u in a closed syllable — A single vowel with a consonant after it and nothing else is usually short. This is the rule that makes CVC words decodable.

Related rules

• TCH after a short vowel — tch — Three letters, one sound, and the same position rule as ck: tch follows a short vowel, ch follows everything else.
• CK after a short vowel — ck — One sound, /k/, and a strict position rule: ck only ever follows a short vowel at the end of a syllable. Never at the start of a word.
• Soft G before E, I and Y — ge / gi / gy — G is often /dʒ/ before e, i and y — but get, give, girl and gift all break it. Far less reliable than soft c, and the difference must be taught.
• 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.

• Previous in Trigraphs: TCH after a short vowel — tch — Three letters, one sound, and the same position rule as ck: tch follows a short vowel, ch follows everything else.
• Next in Trigraphs: IGH — igh — Three letters, one long i. Almost always followed by t, and one of the few places gh can be predicted with confidence.
• All reading rules

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