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Unit 7, Part 2: Spelling the long vowel sounds

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Unit 7: Short vowels, Part 2: i, o and u

Unit Startpage 13Course Testpage 15page 16page 17page 18Course Testpage 20page 21page 22page 23Course Testpage 25page 26Course Testpage 28Unit End

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Spelling the long vowel sound /ī/: i-e, igh, y, ie


/ī/ as in ice-cream. learning to spell long vowel sound i

Teaching point How to spell the long /ī/ sound:

Sometimes we just need the letter i:
item icon idea idol iris iron
ivy ivory crisis final pilot silent


Sometimes we add another letter. For example:

words with long i sound words with long i sound
words with long i sound
words with long i sound
as in kite. igh as in light. y as in sky. ie as in tie.
We use the split digraph
i-e
to make the i say its name.
Sometimes we use the trigraph igh (three letters make one sound). We can use y. Four words use ie.
Some examples:
bribe
tribe
hide
wide
bride
life
wife
bike
like
file
mile
pile
crime
time
fine
whine*
wine*
shine
spine
ripe
stripe
rise
wise
bite*
quite
write*
dive
drive
fire
tire*
wire


admire
desire
entire
require
advise
invite
beside
divide
...and many more
Learn the Words:

Some examples:
high
nigh
sigh
thigh
bright
fight
flight
fright
knight*
might*
night*
plight
right*
sight*
slight
tight
delight
nightmare
twilight
highlight
Learn the Words:
Rule breakers break spelling rules
height
Some examples:

by*
my
cry
dry
fry
fly
ply
sly
spy
shy
sty
why
apply
comply
imply
supply
defy
deny
rely
reply
July
identify
magnify
multiply


byte*
rhyme
cycle
dynamic
hyphen
hydrogen
pylon
python
typhoon
hygiene
psychology
psychiatry

Learn the Words:
die*
lie
pie
tie

These ie words are made by adding a suffix to words which end in -y.
More on this in Unit 9.
cries
cried
ties
tied
spies
spied
dries
dried
fries
fried
replies
replied
etc.
Learn the Words:

Notes:
1) Words marked * are homophones. See page 17.
2) Words ending in -ice are in Unit 20.

You have not completed Learn the Words activities for each word list on this page.

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