Sounds and English Spelling Patterns

Everyone knows that English spelling patterns are difficult and most of the time it seems to make no sense. One way we can make sense of it is to link word sounds to letters.

Reading Activity

To do this, I have given you an article I found in The I newspaper on Friday 12 February 2021.

The sound and spelling pattern we are going to look at today is the long ‘e’ vowel sound:

Read the article aloud to yourself, and write down any words you read that have the long ‘e’ sound. For example, the word ‘feeding’ in the first paragraph as a long ‘e’ sound. To find the article, click the link below:

Remember, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the meaning of some of the words in the text. Today we are only interested in the sound of the word.

Listen and read

Now read the article again, this time while you listen to the recording. Write down any words you hear with the long ‘e’ sound. Are the words you have written the same as when you read the article the first time?

Check your answers with the article below.

Find the spelling

Look at the words you have written. Find the letters that make the long ‘e’ vowel sound and underline them. Check your answers.

Make a list

When you have found all the spellings, you will see that the long ‘e’ vowel sounds in the article are made up of four different spellings:

• ee          (feeding, feel, freedom, three)
• ea          (meat, leave)
• ei           (protein/s)
• e + consonant + e          (complete, even)

Find some more

Now choose your own newspaper story to read and see if you can find any more of these spelling patterns.

I hope you enjoyed this activity. If you’d like me to add a lesson to the blog to help you with English grammar, reading, writing, speaking or listening, email me and I’ll be happy to help.