The Many Jobs of Silent e- Tips for Phonics Instruction

Silent e has many jobs! If you found this article, I’m guessing you recently discovered that silent e has more than one job and you want to learn more about the other silent e rules. Let’s dive in!

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I’m sure you know about silent e’s main job: making the preceding vowel represent its long sound/its name in words like cone and made.

What if I told you that words with silent e only follow this rule 50% of the time? I was surprised when I first learned that, too!

Here is a list of the many jobs of silent e from Denise Eide’s book, Uncovering the logic of English: A common-sense approach to reading, spelling, and literacy:

1. In 50% of words with a silent final e, the preceding vowel sound is long.
2. English words do not end with v or u, so silent e is added to the end of these words. Examples: give, true.
3. Silent e can soften the sounds of c and g. Examples: cage, face.
4. Every syllable must have a written vowel, so sometimes a silent e is added. Think of consonant-le endings: bubble, tackle.
5. Silent e can help distinguish between singular and plural nouns. If we spelled the word moose without the silent e, how would we know the difference between the word for the animal and the word for many moo sounds (moos)?
6. This might sound silly, but sometimes a silent e is added to make a word look bigger. Example: awe, owe, tie.
7. A silent e can change the /th/ sound from unvoiced to voiced. Examples: breath becomes breathe, bath becomes bathe.
8. Silent e can also clarify meaning and differentiate among homophones. Example: or and ore.

Phew! That’s a lot of jobs for one letter. If you’re feeling overwhelmed about teaching all of this to your students, let’s focus in on one important thing:

When you first introduce silent e rules, mention to your students that the main job (making the preceding vowel represent the long sound) is not the only job of silent e. Even if you are not prepared to teach the other jobs of silent e now, it will prevent future confusion if you make the children aware that there is not just one strict rule for silent e.

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I like to think of silent e as a ninja, no matter which job it is doing because it is silent and sneaky. This is why I created my Ninja e Phonics Units. In these resources, Ninja e sneaks up on the word and changes other sounds in the word. There’s a unit for rules #1, 3, and 4 (basic silent e, soft c and g, and consonant -le.)

The ninja hand puppets will capture your students’ attention and make for a memorable lesson. Each unit comes with a slide deck where Ninja e swoops in to perform its job, as well as several worksheets that provide your students opportunities to read and spell silent e words at the word and sentence levels. The units also include phoneme-grapheme mapping boxes for silent e words from the Dolch and Fry lists, which means you can align your high-frequency word instruction with your phonics instruction.

Teachers say these units were their students’ favorite activities of the year!

I hope this information makes you feel more confident teaching the jobs of silent e! If you’re looking to dive even deeper, be on the lookout for upcoming blog posts. I also highly recommend that you check out Denise Eide’s book!

Source: Eide, D. (2012). Uncovering the logic of English: A common-sense approach to reading, spelling, and literacy. Logic of English, Inc.

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