The Spelling Rules for Adding Suffixes:

When do you drop the letter e ?

Remember, a suffix is a letter or group of letters added to the end of a root word to change its meaning.

A vowel suffix is a suffix that begins with a vowel.

If you are adding a vowel suffix to a word that ends in e, drop the e.

For example:

date + ing = dating

froze + en = frozen

shine + y = shiny

A consonant suffix is a suffix that begins with a consonant.

If you are adding a consonant suffix to a word that ends in e, you do not need to drop the e.

For example:

hope + less = hopeless

wise + ly = wisely

tune + ful = tuneful

The e at the end of words makes the first vowel sound long. For example, the e in the word hope stops it from sounding like the word hop.

If we removed the e when adding a consonant suffix, there would be nothing to do the important job of making the long vowel sound.

Let’s try it by adding the suffix -less:

If we take away the e, we would pronounce our new word hop-less. This has a very different meaning to the word hope-less!

Learn the Words:

Can you use the above rule to work out when you need to drop the e and when you don’t?

For every spelling rule, there are some rulebreakers.

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