1. The letter q is always followed by the letter u and we say "kw" [quiet]
2. /c/ before e, i or y says 's'. [ chance, icing, icy]
1. The letter q is always followed by the letter u and we say "kw" [quiet]
2. /c/ before e, i or y says 's'. [ chance, icing, icy]
1. The letter q is always followed by the letter u, and we say "kw." [quiet]
2. /c/ before e, i or y says ‘s.' [chance, icing, icy]
3. /g/ before e, i or y may say ‘j.' [germ, giant, gym]
4. We often double l, f and s following a single vowel at the end of a one-syllable word. [ball, off, miss]
5. Two-letter ‘k' (ck) is used only after a single vowel which says short ‘a' - ‘e' - ‘i' - ‘o' - ‘u' [pack, peck, pick, pock, puck]
6. Three-letter j (dge) is used only after a single vowel which says short ‘a' - ‘e' - ‘i' - ‘o' - ‘u' [badge, ledge, ridge, lodge, fudge]
7. The letter z, never s, is used to say ‘z' at the beginning of a base word. [zoo]
8. The letter s never follows x.
9. Double consonants within words of more than one syllable should both be sounded for spelling. [hap py]
10. s-h is used to say ‘sh' at the beginning of a word, at the end of a syllable, but not at the beginning of most syllables after the first one except for the ending ship. [she, wish, friendship]
11. t-i, s-i, and c-i are used to say ‘sh' at the beginning of any syllable after the first one. [nation, mansion, facial]
12. s-i is used to say ‘sh' when the syllable before it [session] or the base word ends in an -s [tense/tension]; s-i can say its voiced ‘zh' sound when s is between two vowels. [vision]
13. Vowels a, e, o, u usually say long ‘a' - ‘e' - ‘o' - ‘u' at the end of a syllable. [pa per, be gin, o pen, u nit]
14. Vowels i and o may say long ‘i' and ‘o' when followed by two consonants. [find, old]
15. Vowels i and y may say ‘i' at the end of a syllable [fam i ly, bi cy cle], but usually say ‘i' or ‘e' [pi an o, ba by, by, fi nal]
16. Vowel y, not i, is used at the end of English words. [by, guy]
17. Base words do not end with the letter a saying long ‘a' (except for the article a); a-y is used most often. [play]
18. o-r may say ‘er' when w comes before the o-r. [works]
19. We use ei after c [receipt], if we say long a [veil], and in some exceptions. [neither, foreign, sovereign, seized, counterfeit, forfeited, leisure, either, weird, heifer, protein, height, feisty, stein, weir, seismograph, sheik, kaleidoscope, Geiger counter, etc.] This is not an exhaustive list of exceptions.
20. Silent final e's:Job 1. Silent final e lets the vowel say its name. [time]
Job 2. English words do not end with v or u. [have, value]
Job 3. Silent final e lets c and g say their second sounds. [chance, charge]
Job 4. English syllables must have a written vowel. [ta ble]
Job 5. No job e [none of the above, e.g., are, horse]
21. All, till and full are usually written with one l when added to another syllable. [almost, until, careful]
22. The past tense ending e-d says ‘d' or ‘t' after words that do not end with d or t [warmed, baked]; otherwise
e-d forms a second syllable. [grad ed]
23. Final y is changed to i before a suffix that does not begin with i. [cry, cried, cry ing]
24. When adding a consonant suffix, silent final e words usually keep the e [safe ty, shame less, move ment], but not always. [wis dom, tru ly, ninth]
25. When adding a vowel suffix, silent final e words are written without the e. [time, timing]
26. When adding a vowel suffix to a one-syllable word ending with one short vowel and one consonant [hop], double the final consonant. [hopping]
27.When adding a vowel suffix to a two-syllable word ending with one short vowel and one consonant, double the final consonant if the accent is on the last syllable [admit´, admitted] unless the suffix throws the accent back to the first syllable. [refer3, referred, ref´ er ence; confer´, conferred, con´ fer ence]
28. When prefixes dis, mis and un are added to root words beginning with the same letter with which the prefix ends, this letter will be doubled. [unnecessary, dissolve, misspell]
29. The plural of most nouns is formed by adding s. [boys, cages, horses]
30. Nouns ending with the sounds of s, x, z, ch, sh or 'j' form their plurals by adding e-s. [fox es, bush es, boss es]
31. Nouns ending in y after a vowel form their plurals by adding s. [mon key/mon keys]
32. Nouns ending in y after a consonant form their plurals by changing y to i and adding e-s.
[pup py/pup pies]
33. Nouns ending in o after a vowel form their plurals by adding s. [pa ti o / pa ti os]
34. Nouns ending in o after a consonant usually form their plurals by adding e-s [he ro/he roes] B except some musical terms. [pi an o/pi an os]
35. Most nouns ending in f and f-e form their plurals by adding s [belief / beliefs]; some change f to v and add
e-s. [wolf /wolves, wife /wives]
35a. Most verbs form their third person, present, singular as if they were nouns becoming plurals. [cuts, raises, dresses, fixes, fizzes, catches, pushes, plays, carries, goes]
36. A one-syllable word is never divided. [boat, good, knelt]
37. A compound word is divided between the words that make the compound word. [shot gun, sun set, air plane]
38. Divide between two consonants [hap py, per haps] unless the consonants form a digraph and are sounded together. [ma chine, e le phant]
39. When a word has an affix, it is divided between the root and the affix. [re run, soft ness, cry ing]
40. When a single consonant comes between two vowels, it is usually divided after the consonant if the first vowel is short. [clev er, lem on, rob in]
41. When a single consonant comes between two vowels or vowel sounds, it is usually divided before the consonant if the first vowel is long. [mu sic, po lite, pa per]
42. Divide between two vowels when they are sounded separately. [di et, cru el]
43. Vowels that are sounded alone form their own syllable. [dis o bey, a live, u ni form]
44. When a word ends in l-e preceded by a consonant, divide before the consonant. [tur tle, ca ble, this tle]
45. Capitalize words which are the individual names or titles of people, of places, of books, of days and months, etc. [Bill, Chief Sitting Bull, New York, Amazon River, Call of the Wild, Sunday, June]
46. An apostrophe takes the place of missing letters in a contraction. [it is/it's; she is/she's; cannot/can't]
47. An apostrophe shows ownership or possession [Mary's coat, boys' coats], but is never used with any possessive pronouns. [my, mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs, its, whose]
Last edited by davidnam; 12-23-2008 at 10:26 AM.