Relax and take your time with Lesson 33. This is challenging material for some people. By now your student is familiar with short-vowel words, such as cap. But, what if an e is found at the end of cap, and it is cape? This is a new word altogether. How is cape pronounced? The presence of the letter e at the end of a short-vowel word changes the first vowel from having a short-vowel sound to having a long-vowel sound. Furthermore, the e at the end of the word is not pronounced—it is silent.

It is important that your student understand this pattern. From now on, we will refer to this pattern as the “long-vowel, silent e pattern.” A suggested dialog for teaching this concept is provided below. Marking vocabulary words with a pencil may help illustrate what the silent e does to a word.

TEACHER: “We are going to learn a new pattern. Many words follow this pattern. You will
be able to read hundreds of new words after you learn this pattern. (Point to the word cap
in Roman numeral I) Let’s have you read this word.”
STUDENT: “Cap.”
TEACHER: “That’s right. Cap has the short-vowel a sound, |ă|. Now, what happens if I
add the letter e to the end of the word? (Point to the e in cape) The letter e at the end
of a word changes how we read it and makes it a brand new word. When you see a word
that ends in e, you need to pronounce the vowel that is inside the word with its long-vowel
sound. The vowels, as you know, are . . .”
STUDENT: “a, e, i, o, u.”
TEACHER: “That’s correct. Now, we know that the short vowels are pronounced |ă|, |ĕ|,
|ĭ|, |ŏ|, and |ŭ|. But, today we’re going to learn the long-vowel sounds for a, e, i, o, and u.
A long vowel is very easy to remember—it says its own name. So, for example, the long
vowel a says |ā|. See? It says its own name! The long-vowel sound for e is |ē|. The long
vowel sound for i is |ī|. Do you see the pattern? What do you think the long-vowel sound
for o says? O says . . .”
STUDENT: “|ō|”
TEACHER: “That’s right! And the long vowel u says . . .”
STUDENT: “|ū|”
TEACHER: “Very good! Let’s look at the word cape once more. Does this word end in e?”
STUDENT: “Yes.”
TEACHER: “That means that the a in cape will have a long-vowel sound. The long-vowel sound of a is |ā|. “But we’re not finished yet. We need to remember that the e at the end of a word is silent. That means that we do not pronounce it. It’s almost as if we pretend the e isn’t there. To help us remember how to read a word that ends in e, I am going to use my pencil to mark the word. I’m going to draw a slash through the e to remind myself that the e is silent, and I’m going to draw a bar over the a to remind myself that the a says its long sound, cāpɇ. Now, let’s have you practice on the next word.”

If your student struggles with reading these words, just keep practicing. You can have him spell and mark some words from Roman numeral I with a slash through the silent e and a bar (technically known as a macron) over the interior vowel. Do not, however, let him become reliant on physically marking the words. We want him to handle this mental process quickly.

One Note About Spelling: The silent e is not pronounced at the end of a word but must be included for accurate spelling.