Unit 20 - Spelling ce, ci and cy words - the soft c sound

The letter c is used to spell two sounds:

This unit covers the 'soft' sound of c.


	as in city	as in face

The sound /s/ can be spelled with either s or c.

There is no one clear rule that tells us which to use, but there are some pointers:

1. If the next letter is a consonant, we must use s:

scream

skill

snore

spider

stage

switch

2. If the next letter is the vowel a, o or u, we must use s:

Saturday

sorry

suggest

3. But if the next letter is the vowel e, i or y, it could be s or c:

selfish	silly	symbol
century	circle	cycle

This unit will focus on the most common ce, ci and cy words.

Look at the three lists below:

Words with a vowel before -ce
Words with the common endings -nce and -rce.
Words with the sound /iss/. This is spelled iss in bliss, hiss, miss, kiss but in longer words the most common spelling is ice.

Read them aloud, listening for the soft c /s/ sound.

Use the icons to help you learn the ones you don’t already know ready for the activity that follows.


ce as in face	nce as in dance	ice as in notice
Ace lace pace race brace grace space sauce* voice choice peace* piece* juice ice dice lice mice nice rice vice slice spice price twice advice device entice sacrifice Learn the Words: 2	chance France glance prance stance advance instance fence pence commence sentence mince since prince wince convince once ounce bounce pounce trounce announce pronounce Learn the Words: 2 Please see page 13 for more -nce words. Words ending in -rce farce force fierce pierce scarce source* resource coerce commerce divorce Learn the Words: 2	Alice bodice hospice justice lattice malice novice office service solstice accomplice apprentice precipice prejudice police Learn the Words: 2 promise Odd words: furnace menace necklace palace surface terrace lettuce police
Words marked * are homophones. Please see page 12