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:

1) In some words of more than one syllable you just need the letter i, for example:
item icon idea idol iris iron
ivy ivory crisis final pilot silent

(more on this in the next Unit - Syllables: Vowel and Consonant Patterns)

2) Sometimes you need to 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
Add e on the end. Most words use
i-e to spell the long /ī/ sound.

Some examples:		 Some words use igh. The letters gh have no sound here.

Some examples:		 Use y on the end and sometimes in the middle.

Some examples:		 Only 4 words use ie on the end.
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		 high
nigh
sigh
thigh
bright
fight
flight
fright
knight*
might*
night*
plight
right*
sight*
slight
tight
delight
nightmare
twilight
highlight

Rule breakers break spelling rules
height		 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
paralyse
hygiene
psychology
psychiatry 		die*
lie
pie
tie


These ie words are made by adding a suffix to words which end in -y. For more on these words, please see Unit 9, Suffixes.

cries
cried
ties
tied
spies
spied
dries
dried
fries
fried
replies
replied
etc.
Notes:
1) Words marked * are homophones. Please see page 17.
2) Words ending in -ice are in Unit 20

next part of the spelling course Go to next page:
test yourself in the long /ī/ words
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Unit 7: Spelling the long vowel sounds

Page 13 of 28

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