IGH

Three letters, one long i. Almost always followed by t, and one of the few places gh can be predicted with confidence.

Trigraphs

igh TRIGRAPH_IGH_01

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

• /aɪ/ long i: night, light, high

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 9: Vowel Teams (Long)

Child explanation

I, g and h together say /aɪ/ — the name of the letter i. Night, light and bright all have it.

The rule

The three letters igh represent a single long i, /aɪ/. In nearly every word it is followed by t.

What is really going on

igh is the residue of an Old English sequence in which the gh represented a velar fricative that has since been lost, lengthening the vowel before it. The set is small and closed, which is what makes it reliable: a child who learns the -ight rime can read most of it at once.

Position in the word

• Middle of a word — Before t. This is the great majority. For example: night, light, right, might.
• End of a word — A handful of words. For example: high, sigh, thigh, nigh.

Examples

Easy examples

night, light, right, high, sight

More examples

might, fight, tight, bright, flight, fright, slight, knight, sigh, thigh, delight

Pseudo-words

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

blight, shight, trigh

Exceptions

• eigh, not igh: eight, weight, neighbour, sleigh. A different team with a different sound, though it looks similar.
• height: height. Spelled eigh but pronounced /aɪ/, which is the reverse of eight.

Contrast pairs

• night versus neat — igh versus a vowel team — different sound, similar look.
• light versus let — Long i versus short e.
• eight versus height — Same four letters, two sounds.

Decodable sentences

• The light was bright last night.
• You are right — that kite can fly high.
• The knight had a big fright.

Teacher note

Teach -ight as a rime rather than igh as a grapheme in isolation. Night, light, right, might, fight, sight, tight and bright are eight common words from one pattern, and a child who learns the chunk reads all of them the same day. Pair it with the ight/ite contrast — kite and bright rhyme but are spelled differently — so it is clear this is a spelling choice, not a sound difference.

Learn these first

• The five long vowels and how they are spelled — a e i o u saying their names — A long vowel says the letter's name. Each one has four to eight regular spellings, and which spelling a word takes is largely decided by position.
• i_e — i_e — Bike, time, nine, ride. Highly reliable, with give and live as the two exceptions children meet earliest.

Related rules

• GH — gh — Usually silent, occasionally /f/, and /g/ only at the start of a word. The single most unreliable consonant spelling in English.
• EI and EIGH — ei / eigh — Long a in eight, weight and neighbour; long e in ceiling and receive. Small, awkward, and best taught as two word lists.
• The letter I — i — Short /ɪ/ almost everywhere, long /aɪ/ before silent e and in a handful of very common families that look closed but are not.
• The letter Y — y — The clearest case in English of position deciding sound. Y is a consonant at the start of a word and a vowel everywhere else — and which vowel depends on how many syllables the word has.

• Previous in Trigraphs: DGE after a short vowel — dge — The /dʒ/ sound spelled for a short vowel. Bridge, badge and judge take dge; large, huge and change take ge.
• All reading rules

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