VCe syllable

The magic e syllable. Vowel, one consonant, silent e — and the vowel is long.

Syllable rules

v_e SYLL_VCE_01

Useful pattern · Medium reliability · Very common · Early · Reading and spelling

• /eɪ/ /aɪ/ /əʊ/ /juː/ long vowels: cake, bike, home

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 6: Magic e · Skill 12: Multisyllable Decoding

Child explanation

Cake, bike, home — a vowel, one letter, then a quiet e.

The rule

A VCe syllable ends vowel–consonant–silent e, and the vowel is long. See the magic e rule for the full treatment.

What is really going on

One of the six syllable types. Inside longer words it appears as a stressed final syllable — invite, compete, decide, escape — which is what makes those words readable once the type is known.

Position in the word

• One-syllable words — The classic case. For example: cake, bike, home, cube.
• Final syllable — The stressed last syllable of a longer word. For example: invite, compete, decide, escape.

Examples

Easy examples

cake, bike, home, cube, these

More examples

name, time, note, rule, invite, compete, decide, escape, mistake, complete

Pseudo-words

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

blape, shime, frobe

Teacher note

Once children can name the VCe syllable, multisyllable words with a magic e ending stop being hard: in-vite is two known syllables rather than one long word. Naming the type is what makes that transfer possible.

Learn these first

• Magic e — v_e — A vowel, one consonant, then e. The e says nothing and the vowel says its name. Reliable — as long as the child knows what it does not cover.

Related rules

• Magic e — v_e — A vowel, one consonant, then e. The e says nothing and the vowel says its name. Reliable — as long as the child knows what it does not cover.
• Closed syllable — CVC — A syllable ending in a consonant. The vowel is short — the most reliable vowel generalisation in English.
• Syllable division — VC/CV · V/CV · VC/V — Where you split a word decides whether its vowel is long or short. Three patterns cover most of English.
• 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 Syllable rules: Open syllable — CV — A syllable ending in a vowel. The vowel is long — go, me, hi, robot, paper.
• Next in Syllable rules: Vowel team syllable — CVVC — A syllable whose vowel is spelled with two or more letters. The team is one unit and must not be split.
• All reading rules

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