TCH after a short vowel

Three letters, one sound, and the same position rule as ck: tch follows a short vowel, ch follows everything else.

Trigraphs

tch TRIGRAPH_TCH_01

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

• /tʃ/ ch: catch, match, kitchen

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

Child explanation

Catch and match have tch because the vowel before is short. Beach and lunch have ch — one has a long vowel, the other has a consonant in the way.

The rule

Immediately after a short vowel at the end of a one-syllable word, /tʃ/ is spelled tch. After a long vowel, a vowel team, or a consonant, it is spelled ch.

What is really going on

The tch/ch distribution mirrors ck/k and dge/ge precisely: the three-letter form follows a short vowel, the shorter form follows anything else. Reliability is high, with four common exceptions.

When this rule works

• A single short vowel directly precedes the /tʃ/.
• The /tʃ/ ends the syllable.

When this rule does not work

• The vowel is long or a team: beach, teach, coach, each.
• A consonant intervenes: lunch, bench, munch, pinch.
• The word is one of the four exceptions below.

Examples

Easy examples

catch, match, watch, fetch, pitch

More examples

hatch, patch, batch, ditch, witch, switch, stretch, sketch, hutch, crutch, kitchen, butcher

Pseudo-words

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

natch, flitch, prutch

Exceptions

• Short vowel but ch anyway: much, such, rich, which, attach. Four common words that simply do not follow the rule.

Contrast pairs

• catch versus coach — Short vowel takes tch; vowel team takes ch.
• match versus march — Short vowel takes tch; a consonant before the sound takes ch.
• pitch versus peach — The clearest pair for the rule.

Teacher note

Teach tch, ck and dge together as one idea — after a short vowel, English uses the longer spelling — rather than as three separate rules learned months apart. Children who see the shared pattern remember all three; children taught them separately remember none reliably. Name much, such, rich and which as the four to learn by heart.

Learn these first

• CH and its three sounds — ch — /tʃ/ in chip, /k/ in school, /ʃ/ in chef. Each group has a cause — and the cause is where the word came from.
• 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.
• 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

• 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.
• 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.
• The FLOSS rule — -ff -ll -ss -zz — After a short vowel at the end of a one-syllable word, f, l, s and z are doubled. Doubling changes nothing about the sound.
• CH and its three sounds — ch — /tʃ/ in chip, /k/ in school, /ʃ/ in chef. Each group has a cause — and the cause is where the word came from.

• Next 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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