lulubelle Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Is there a trick to know what words are spelled with long a "ai" sound and not a silent e? How do you teach what makes no sense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Many are different because they are homophones, with these homophones the more common word is generally spelled with a silent e. In the most common 17,000 words in English, only 310 have an ai in them, and some of these are variations of the same root--rain, rainbow. I also like to teach ai/ay, ei/ey (vein/they), ui/ue, and oi/oy as spelling pairs with the rule that native English words do not end in i, so the other form will be used at the end of a word. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Is there a trick to know what words are spelled with long a "ai" sound and not a silent e? How do you teach what makes no sense? What doesn't make sense?? :confused: Why should there be some kind of a rule regarding using ai instead of silent e?:confused: Instead of trying to involve silent e, teach the difference between ai and ay. We use ay at the end of a word, because English words don't end with i. There are several reasons that a vowel says its "long" sound, and only one involves silent e. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penelope Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 All About Spelling uses word banks to help students remember which words use particular spellings. Basically it is visual memory. There isn't a rule AFAIK to determine which of several ways to spell a particular sound, at least there isn't in many cases. You could easily make your own word banks using the pages from a book such as ABC's and All Their Tricks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie in MN Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 When I tutor kids, the materials we use spend some time on this spelling. I think the biggest help is just getting kids to recognize this pattern of spelling the /A/ sound. I just remind them that we're studying the less common way of spelling /A/. If needed, I might say, "It's the /A/ spelling in paint." (It's the /O/ spelling in boat, etc.) I agree that there are reasons such as helping differentiate homonyms, word origins from certain languages, etc. But it doesn't seem to "click" for most kids when I tell them this VERY interesting info :) What they do need to realize is that there's a pattern, and it's not random in each word. A whole group of /A/ words have the AI spelling, and this word is one of them. That's what works for me. Julie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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