The Hardest Working Letter: The Many Jobs of Silent E

If you had to guess which letter of our alphabet is the hardest working, which would you pick? If you said the letter E, you're correct!

Until I went through the Orton Gillingham training, I had no idea that the letter E actually has 9 different jobs. I was fascinated to learn that it does MUCH more than making vowels say their long sound in the VCe pattern.

You know who else is fascinated when learning about Silent E's 9 jobs? Kids!

That's why, several months ago, I decided to write my first book, The Hardest Working Letter: The Many Jobs of Silent E. After I published the book and received my first copy, I took it into school to read to my reading intervention students. You would have thought I was a famous celebrity! They were in awe that their teacher was a published author- haha! I even had parents bringing in copies of the book for me to sign, which was so sweet 🥰

In today's blog post, we're going to explore each job of the Silent E and I'll give you some practical tips for teaching them in your classroom! Be sure to read to the end because I've got an amazing freebie for you too!

#1- Makes the vowel say it's long sound in a VCe syllable

Let's start with the most obvious one. When a syllable has a vowel followed by a consonant and then the letter E, the E makes the vowel say it's long sound. This is probably the job that you are most familiar with!

Example words: take, slide, home, cute, eve

#2- Protects the letters i, u, v, and j from being at the end of a word

Did you know that in English, words don't end with the letters i, u, j, or v? This was news to me! Just remember that this only applies to English words, and not words that we have borrowed from other languages.

To ensure that words don't end with these letters, you'll find a silent E after them at the end of a word!

Example words: have, give, true, pie, tie

#3- Makes sure the Consonant-Le syllable type has a vowel

Every syllable in a word has to have a vowel, so the silent E serves as the vowel in the Consonant-Le syllable type. Even though we don't hear it, it's doing an important job!

Example words: table, bottle, hurdle, simple, candle

#4- Can make the C and G say their soft sound

When the letters C and G have a silent E after them, the letters will make their soft soft instead of their hard sound. C is first taught as making its hard sound /k/, but it can also make the /s/ sound when followed by the letters E, I, or Y (cent, city, spicy). The same goes for the letter G. Its hard sound is /g/, but can also say its soft sound /j/ when followed by the letters E, I, or Y (age, gist, gym).

Example words: ice, face, age, hinge

#5- Shows that a word isn't plural

The silent E can get added to a word to show that it isn't plural, because it would otherwise look plural without it. Since most words that are plural end with an -s, the silent E helps to distinguish this.

NOTE: This is a good place to mention that there are always exceptions to every "rule" and these jobs of the silent E are more like generalizations, and not hard-and-fast rules. For example, the words has, is, and was all end with an -s, but are not plural. Also, words with the FLOSS rule end in an -s, like glass, miss, and fuss are not plural.

Here's an example of how the silent E distinguishes between plural/not plural:

teas- I tried many different teas until I found the one I love to drink before bed!

tease- Please don't tease your sister.

Other example words: pleas/please, dens/dense

#6- Makes TH say its voiced sound

The digraph TH can make two sounds: it's unvoiced sound /th/ like in the word bath, and it's voiced sound /th/ like in the word bathe. When a TH is followed by a silent E, it can make the TH say its voiced sound.

Example words: cloth/clothe, teeth/teethe, breath/breathe

#7- Clarifies the meaning of words that sound the same

The silent E can also help us understand the difference in meaning between two words. For example, the words by/bye sound the same, but have different meanings. The silent E helps to show that these two words have different meanings.

Example words: by/bye, aw/awe

#8- Makes small words appear to be longer

Did you know that content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) will almost always be spelled with 3 or more letters? To make a content word adhere to this "rule", sometimes a silent E is added to make it appear longer and stronger! Pretty cool, huh?!

Example words: are, owe, ewe

#9- Shows the history of a word

The silent E can be a historical or etymological marker. In these cases, the e was once pronounced or follows spelling rules of the language of origin.

Example words: come, done, some

Tips for Teaching the 9 Jobs of Silent E

Here are a few tips for teaching the jobs of the Silent E to your students:

• Don't teach them all at once! This would be extremely confusing and overwhelming for students. You can mention that the Silent E has many important jobs, but don't dive deep into each one until they are developmentally ready to understand. For example, I wouldn't want to teach my first graders about how the Silent E shows the history of a word, when they are just starting to learn about the VCe syllable type.
• Encourage curiosity in your students! If they come across a word with a Silent E and they're unsure of the job its doing, explore it together with your class. Kids love to investigate words!
  
  

I hope you have a better understanding of the Silent E now, and how it does SO.MUCH.MORE than just making vowels say their long sound! Below, I'm sharing a poster of "The Many Jobs of Silent E" that you can use in your classroom. Just click on the image to download your FREE copy! 

(P.S.- The images on the poster perfectly compliment my book, The Hardest Working Letter: The Many Jobs of Silent E!)