UE

Long u at the end of a word — blue, true, rescue. The same two values as ew, split the same way.

Vowel teams

ue TEAM_UE_01

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

• /uː/ as in blue: blue, true, glue
• /juː/ as in rescue: rescue, value, argue

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

Child explanation

Ue at the end of a word says the u sound — blue, true, glue.

The rule

Ue represents long u at the end of a word — /uː/ after r, l and j, /juː/ elsewhere.

What is really going on

The e here is doing double duty: it completes the vowel team and it prevents the word ending in u, which English avoids. That is why blue, true, glue and clue all carry an e that looks redundant.

Position in the word

• End of a word — The only position. For example: blue, true, glue, rescue.

Examples

Easy examples

blue, true, glue, clue, due

More examples

sue, cue, rescue, value, argue, continue, avenue, statue, tissue

Pseudo-words

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

brue, shue, flue

Exceptions

• ue after g and q: guess, tongue, league, plaque, antique. Silent — the u is forcing the g hard, or is part of qu.

Contrast pairs

• blue versus blew — Homophones, two spellings.
• true versus threw — Same sound, two spellings.

Teacher note

Point out that the e in blue is the no-final-u rule, the same rule as the e in have — that is the second job of silent e doing useful work again, and it makes the spelling feel purposeful rather than arbitrary.

Related rules

• EW — ew — Two closely related sounds — /juː/ in few and /uː/ in flew — split by the consonant before, and by accent.
• 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.
• 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.
• Hard G — ga / go / gu / g + consonant — G is /g/ before a, o, u and consonants, at the end of words, when doubled, and in a long list of Germanic words where soft g would be expected.

• Previous in Vowel teams: EW — ew — Two closely related sounds — /juː/ in few and /uː/ in flew — split by the consonant before, and by accent.
• Next in Vowel teams: UI — ui — A small set — fruit, juice, suit, bruise — plus a group where the u is silent after g and q. Rare, and best learned as words.
• All reading rules

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