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

/ī/as in ice-cream

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:


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 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