EI and EIGH

Long a in eight, weight and neighbour; long e in ceiling and receive. Small, awkward, and best taught as two word lists.

Vowel teams

ei / eigh TEAM_EI_01

Word-family rule · Low reliability · Occasional · Advanced · Reading

• /eɪ/ long a: eight, weight, vein
• /iː/ long e: ceiling, receive, either

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

Child explanation

Eigh says /eɪ/ in eight and weight. Ei says /iː/ in ceiling. There are not many of these words, so it is easier to learn them than to work them out.

The rule

Eigh is long a in a small closed set: eight, weight, freight, neighbour, sleigh. Ei after c is usually long e: ceiling, receive, deceive. Elsewhere ei is unpredictable and the word must be known.

What is really going on

A small grapheme with several sources and no usable generalisation outside the two named sets. Height is the notable trap: it is spelled eigh and pronounced /aɪ/, which is neither of the two groups.

Position in the word

• Middle of a word — Both values. For example: eight, ceiling, height.

Examples

Easy examples

eight, weight, ceiling, either, vein

More examples

freight, neighbour, sleigh, reign, receive, deceive, seize, protein, weird

Advanced examples

height, forfeit, leisure

Exceptions

• height: height. Spelled eigh, pronounced /aɪ/ — the reverse of eight.
• either and neither: either, neither. Both /aɪ/ and /iː/ are standard, depending on the speaker.

Contrast pairs

• eight versus height — Same four letters, two different vowels.
• weight versus wait — Homophones, different spellings.

Teacher note

Teach eight, weight and neighbour as a word family with the -eigh chunk, and leave the ei-after-c group for spelling work. Do not reach for the i-before-e rhyme; it will not help a reader decode any of these.

Accent notes

• General American and British English — Either and neither are said with /aɪ/ by some speakers and /iː/ by others, within the same accent. Both are correct.

Related rules

• IGH — igh — Three letters, one long i. Almost always followed by t, and one of the few places gh can be predicted with confidence.
• IE — ie — Long i at the end of a short word — pie, tie, lie — and long e in the middle of a longer one: chief, field, believe.
• AY — ay — Long a at the end of a word or syllable. Among the most reliable vowel teams in English — there is essentially nothing else it says.
• GH — gh — Usually silent, occasionally /f/, and /g/ only at the start of a word. The single most unreliable consonant spelling in English.

• Previous in Vowel teams: EY — ey — Usually long e at the end of a word — key, money, honey. A smaller group says long a: they, grey, obey.
• All reading rules

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