Nov 02, 2017
How to Teach Final Silent E
Silent E can be very tricky for students who struggle with reading. We teach children to sound out words and they grind to a halt in the face of undecodable sound spellings and "silent" letters. To help students understand the complexities of final silent E, add these fun multisensory elements to your lessons.
Pinchy E
- As you prepare to teach Pinchy E, focus first on the word LIKE. To prepare, write the letters for LIKE, one letter per notecard.
- Tell the children that they are going to help you teach by doing a little skit about someone named Pinchy E. Give a letter each to four children, lining them up in order to spell LIKE. Tell them that E doesn’t really say anything at all because he’s so busy being sneaky. While the other letters are each saying a sound, he’s quietly reaching behind K and pinching i. When he pinches I, I gets startled and says his name “I” (long sound, not short sound).
*If you do not have four people or do not wish to act out the skit, you may draw four stick figures and assign one letter to each.
- Guide the children into sounding out the word. The child holding L will say /L/ when you point to them, the child holding "I" will say long I louder because sneaky Pinchy E is pinching him at that moment. K then says /K/. Blend together to say LIKE.
- Tell the children, "Although the E does not have a sound of its own, it does help the first vowel make a different sound from what it would say if the E were not present." For example:
Write the word "pin." Help the children sound it out. Now add an "E" to the end. Say, "Now, what does it say?" [PINE] Ask the children why is says pine instead of pin. [The E is pinching the I, making it say its name.]
- You may repeat this little play with four different children using other words such as MIKE, BIKE, HIKE. Switch vowels and do the same play with AKE words: LAKE, CAKE, TAKE, BAKE, WAKE. Let the children end the lesson by looking though books to find words with the Pinchy E in them.
Encouraging E
- Write the word "have" on your whiteboard and draw a little curve under the letters V and E. Tell the children that V and E are working together to make the "V" sound.
- Say, "The letter V doesn't get used very much so he is pretty shy. Being able to stand with the E makes him feel a lot more confident. E is so busy encouraging V that he forgot to reach around and pinch the vowel, so A makes its short sound instead of saying her name."
- Sound out the word together: /h/ /ă/ /v/
- Continue with other words that follow this pattern: give, live.
- If there is time and interest, the children could act out a skit for this group of words as well, with E encouraging V.
Sleepy E
- Write these words on your whiteboard: more, core, store, close. Sound them out with the children.
- Say, "Normally when we see a word like these words, Pinchy E at the end makes the O say its name. But there are other words that don't act like these words do."
- Write the word "love" on your whiteboard. Say, "Look at this word, it says love. It doesn't follow the pattern of Pinchy E because O doesn't say its name. And it doesn't follow the Encouraging E pattern because the O is not making its short sound. What is E doing now?" Allow children to share their ideas.
- Show the children the O VE image. (You could even make enough copies for each child to have their own.) Encourage them to study the visual. Ask, "What is the O character doing? It looks to me like he's thinking hard and he is saying, 'uhhhh.'" Have the children say, "uhhhh," as they pretend to think hard.
- Say, "Now let's check out the E at the end of the word. What is he doing? He's certainly not acting like Pinchy E or Encouraging E! It looks like he is Sleepy E!"
- Sound out the word together, emphasizing the "uhhhh" sound: /l/ /ŭ/ /v/
- Continue with other words that follow this pattern: come, some, dove, above, glove.
- As before, you may act out a skit for this group of words if there is interest.
Conclusion
While final silent E can create a stumbling block for children learning to read, adding right-brain-friendly elements to your lessons can break down those barriers. Try it today and see the difference it makes!
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