EW

Two closely related sounds — /juː/ in few and /uː/ in flew — split by the consonant before, and by accent.

Vowel teams

ew TEAM_EW_01

Useful pattern · High reliability · Occasional · Intermediate · Reading and spelling

• /uː/ as in flew: flew, grew, chew
• /juː/ as in few: few, new, stew

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 10: Diphthongs & Variant Vowels

Child explanation

Ew says /uː/ or /yoo/ — flew and few. Both are the letter u sound.

The rule

Ew represents long u at the end of a word. After r, l and j it is plain /uː/; elsewhere it is often /juː/, and which one appears in new, stew and dew depends on the accent.

What is really going on

Same distribution as long u generally: the /j/ glide is lost after /r/, /l/ and /dʒ/, and its survival after /t/, /d/ and /n/ varies by accent. The grapheme itself is reliable — it is the glide that varies, and the glide is an accent feature rather than a reading decision.

Position in the word

• End of a word — The usual position. For example: few, new, flew, grew.
• Before a consonant — Before n, in a handful of words. For example: newt, jewel, sewn.

Examples

Easy examples

few, new, flew, grew, chew

More examples

blew, crew, drew, threw, screw, stew, dew, knew, nephew, jewel

Pseudo-words

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

blew, shrew, prew

Exceptions

• sew: sew. Pronounced /səʊ/, rhyming with so rather than with few.

Contrast pairs

• flew versus few — The two values of ew.
• new versus knew — Homophones with different spellings.
• sew versus few — The one word that breaks the pattern.

Teacher note

Teach alongside u_e and oo as three spellings of one sound. Sew is worth naming as a single odd word, because it appears in stories about mending and sewing and children stall on it.

Accent notes

• General American — New and stew usually lose the glide: /nuː/, /stuː/.
• British and Indian English — The glide is generally kept: /njuː/, /stjuː/.

Related rules

• u_e — u_e — Two sounds, not one: /juː/ in cube and mule, /uː/ in rule and June. Which one depends on the consonant before it.
• OO and its two sounds — oo — /uː/ in moon and /ʊ/ in book. Roughly three to one in favour of moon, with no spelling clue — but a strong clue in the following consonant.
• UE — ue — Long u at the end of a word — blue, true, rescue. The same two values as ew, split the same way.
• The letter U — u — Short /ʌ/, two different long values, a /ʊ/ set after p and b, and a job as a silent partner to q and g.

• Previous in Vowel teams: AW — aw — The end-of-word partner to au. Saw, draw, law, crawl — reliable for /ɔː/.
• Next in Vowel teams: UE — ue — Long u at the end of a word — blue, true, rescue. The same two values as ew, split the same way.
• All reading rules

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