{"id":68,"date":"2014-02-06T10:05:52","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T15:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/?page_id=68"},"modified":"2018-03-21T16:21:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T20:21:19","slug":"spelling-hints","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/spelling-hints\/","title":{"rendered":"Spelling Hints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spelling Rules<\/h1>\n
By\u00a0Tracey Wood<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Teaching Kids to Spell For Dummies<\/a><\/div>\n

Some rules make life hard for your child. She wants to feel the soft grass under her toes, but the sign says to keep out, or she wants to bomb into the blue water, but the lifeguard warns her against any kind of jumping. Not so with spelling rules. Spelling rules help a great deal as long as you don’t overload your child with them. Three or four rules cover pretty much all the important spelling factors that your child needs to know.<\/p>\n

Rule One: Bossy e<\/h2>\n

You write Bossy\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0everywhere. That’s why it’s a great letter for your child to get to know. Here’s the rule: Your child spells a word like\u00a0mate<\/em>\u00a0by adding Bossy\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0to the end of\u00a0mat<\/em>. The\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0is bossy because it bosses the other vowel in the word to make a long sound or to shout out its name. Here are a few words that show Bossy\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0doing its thing:\u00a0plate, mate, lake, Pete, scene, ride, hide, mine, rode, bone, hope, cute, mule\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0tune<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When a vowel makes a long sound, it’s the same sound as its name. Bossy\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0makes the vowel (in the word it tags onto) have a long sound\u00a0or<\/em>\u00a0shout out its name.<\/p>\n

Rule Two: When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking<\/h2>\n

Here’s a cute rhyme to help your child remember another way of spelling long vowel sounds. When spelling words like\u00a0neat<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0boat,\u00a0<\/em>your child can go over the when-two-vowels-go-walking-the-first-one-does-the-talking rhyme. Most long-e<\/em>\u00a0sounds fit the two vowels rule. Long\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0is spelled either withee<\/em>, like in\u00a0meet, seed,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0weed,<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0ea<\/em>, like in\u00a0team, seat,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0bead.<\/em>\u00a0The two vowels come side by side, but the first is the one that makes its long sound. A long-o\u00a0<\/em>sound is also often spelled with two vowels. The long\u00a0o<\/em>\u00a0is spelled with\u00a0oa<\/em>\u00a0like in\u00a0boat, coat,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0loan<\/em>. A long-a<\/em>\u00a0sound can be spelled with side-by-side vowels, too. In words like\u00a0pain\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0rain,<\/em>\u00a0your child spells the long-a\u00a0<\/em>sound with\u00a0ai.<\/em>\u00a0See how the two vowels come together? Your child needs to start them with the long vowel that he hears and then remember the partnership.<\/p>\n

Rule Three: y behaves like a vowel<\/h2>\n

Without a doubt, vowel sounds are tricky to spell. That’s why these four spelling rules are about them. Every time your child hears a long-vowel sound, he must run through the options, which explains why he always needs to use scrap paper when trying to spell them. The third option mostly has to do with long-e<\/em>\u00a0or long-i<\/em>\u00a0sounds that your child hears on the ends of words. The\u00a0y<\/em>-behaving-as-a-vowel rule applies to vowel sounds on the end of words that are spelled with a\u00a0y.<\/em>\u00a0In words like\u00a0happy<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0sunny,<\/em>your child uses\u00a0y<\/em>\u00a0to sound like long\u00a0e<\/em>. In little words like\u00a0by<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0shy,<\/em>\u00a0he uses it to sound like long\u00a0i.<\/em><\/p>\n

What about words like\u00a0system, cyst,<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0gypsy<\/em>? In those words, your child spells the short-i<\/em>\u00a0sound with a\u00a0y.\u00a0<\/em>The words\u00a0cyst<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0gypsy<\/em>\u00a0are soft-c<\/em>\u00a0and soft-g<\/em>\u00a0spellings (as well as spellings that use y to make the short-i<\/em>\u00a0sound) so.<\/p>\n

You use\u00a0y<\/em>\u00a0to make\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0i<\/em>\u00a0sounds. When your child puts\u00a0y<\/em>\u00a0on the ends of longer words (like\u00a0happy<\/em>), it makes a long-e<\/em>\u00a0sound, and when she puts\u00a0y<\/em>\u00a0on the end of short words (like\u00a0by<\/em>), it makes a long-i<\/em>\u00a0sound. She uses\u00a0y<\/em>\u00a0in the middle of some words (like\u00a0gypsy<\/em>) to make the short-i<\/em>\u00a0sound. When your child gets into the habit of jotting down her spelling options on scrap paper, she gets better and better at deciding whether to use\u00a0y.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rule Four: i before e except after c (when you hear ee)<\/h2>\n

All sorts of words have the long-e<\/em>\u00a0sound in them, and the\u00a0i-<\/em>before-e-<\/em>except-after-c\u00a0<\/em>rule gives your child a fourth spelling option. The question becomes: Should your child write Bossy\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0like in\u00a0Pete,<\/em>\u00a0or two vowels walking like in\u00a0meat\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0meet,<\/em>\u00a0y<\/em>\u00a0as in\u00a0happy,<\/em>\u00a0or ie as in\u00a0niece<\/em>? Whew. Where\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0that scrap paper? With\u00a0ie\u00a0<\/em>spellings, be sure to help your child learn the first part of the rule \u2014\u00a0i<\/em>\u00a0before\u00a0e<\/em>\u00a0except after\u00a0c<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 before helping her discover the except-when-you-hear-“ay”<\/em>-like-in-neighbor part. Practice on words like\u00a0niece, piece,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0receive,<\/em>\u00a0and after she’s at ease with those, tackle the tough words likeneighbor<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0weight.<\/em>\u00a0(You hear\u00a0ay,<\/em>\u00a0so you don’t put\u00a0i<\/em>\u00a0before\u00a0e.<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spelling Rules By\u00a0Tracey Wood\u00a0from\u00a0Teaching Kids to Spell For Dummies Some rules make life hard for your child. She wants to feel the soft grass under her toes, but the sign says to keep out, or she wants to bomb into the blue water, but the lifeguard warns her against any kind of jumping. Not so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-68","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iblog.dearbornschools.org\/mrmay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}