What is the Magic “e” Rule?
When the vowel “e” comes to the end of the word, the preceding vowel says its name or long sound, and this “e” becomes silent. Then, we call this “e” as magical or silent “e”. It is magical because it changes the sound and meaning of a word just by touching it! The magic e vowels are as follows: a_e, i_e, o_e and u_e.
Let’s take a look at the word car for example. The “a” in the word isn’t strongly pronounced. When we add a magic “e”, the word becomes care. The “a” is now pronounced but the ‘e’ is silent.
Here are some everyday examples of magic ‘e’ words:
- Huge
- Globe
- Hate
- Breathe
- Kite
- Twine
- Fate
There are exceptions to the magic “e” rule: love, glove, above, oven, cover, have, live, come, some. These words have short vowel sounds.
∗ The magic “e” is taken away when we add a suffix beginning with a vowel.
- Make ⇒ Making
- Grade ⇒ Grader
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