Spelling Rules
Taylor High School
English Department
© MJB 01/12
Rule One: ‘q’
• The letter ‘q’ is always followed by
the letter ‘u.’ Together they make
the ‘kw’ sound.
• queen, acquaintance, quiet, quite,
aqua, earthquake, quaint, equation,
consequence, equilateral, soliloquy,
acquire
Rule Two: Soft ‘c’
• When the letter ‘c’ comes before the
letters ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’ then it is a soft ‘c’
– making the ‘s’ sound.
• absence, audience, convenience,
consequence, concentration,
conscience, vaccine, sequence,
nuisance, adjacent, cycle, circulate
Rule Three: Soft ‘g’
• When the letter ‘g’ comes before the
letters ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’ then it is a soft ‘g’
– making the ‘j’ sound
• technology, knowledge, energy,
engagement, percentage, average,
Spelling Rule Four: ‘i’ and ‘y’
• If the letters ‘i’ or ‘y’ are followed by
a consonant then they normally make
the ‘i’ sound.
• big, gym, acid, pitch, tactic, spirit,
pilgrim, synagogue, rhythm, lyric,
simile, myth, mill, analysis, fulfil,
prefix, alliteration, citizen, disease
Rule Five: Silent ‘e’
• Silent ‘e’ makes the vowel say its
name
• bake, ache, scene, code, tune, die,
alive, five, scale, score, octave,
trade, climate.
Rule Six: silent ‘e’ – again !
• Silent ‘e’ is used to avoid words
ending in a ‘u’ or a ‘v.’
• blue, true, live, give, rave, save, love,
glove, issue, queue, connective,
dialogue, negative, octave, league,
Rule Seven: Doubling
Consonants.
• One syllable words need the final
consonant to be doubled before adding a
suffix which starts with a vowel.
•
•
•
•
hop + p +ed = hopped
shop + p =ing = shopping
get + t + ing = getting
tan + n + ing = tanning
Rule Eight: Words ending in
silent final ‘e’
• Words which end in a silent final ‘e’
Eg: give, take make, dance, drop the final ‘e’
when adding an ending beginning with a
vowel.
• hope – hoping, give – giving, take – taking,
make- making, dance – dancing.
Rule Nine:The sound ‘sh’
• In many words the ‘sh’ sound is represented by ‘ti’
e.g: station, nation, information, education.
• However, where a new word is formed from a root
word, the ending is linked to the root word. In
the following words the ‘sh’ sound is represented
by ‘ci’
• Music – musician; space – spacious; finance –
financial
Rule Ten: Double letters – l – f
–s
• These are often doubled following a
single vowel at the end of a one
syllable word
• Eg: will, full, pull, off, miss
Rule Eleven – Prefixes
• Often it can be helpful to learn
prefixes as they don’t usually change.
The prefix “all” only uses one ‘l’,
becoming ‘al’
• Eg: almost, always, although, already,
Rule Twelve- Suffixes
• Often it can be helpful to learn
suffixes, as they don’t usually
change. The suffixes “till” and “full”
only have one ‘l’.
• Eg: beautiful, wonderful, helpful
Rule Thirteen – ‘dge’
• The letters ‘dge’ are only used after a
short vowel.
• Eg; badge, edge, fudge, ledge.
• Long vowels use ‘ge’
• Eg: cage, sage, rage, page.
Rule Fourteen: ‘ck.’
• ‘ck’ is used only after a short vowel.
• Eg: back, neck, sick, rock, lock, deck,
peck, pick, dock, frock, sack, crack,
black, pack, wick.
Rule Fifteen: ‘ed.’
• ‘ed’ at the end of words has three different
sounds – namely ‘d’, ‘t’, ‘ed’
• ‘d’ - if the words ends in a vocal ‘voiced’ consonant
sound, the ending ‘ed’ sounds ‘d’ as in lived
• ‘t’ – if the base word ends in aspirate ‘unvoiced’,
consonant sound, the ending ‘ed’ sounds ‘t’ as in
jumped
• ‘ed’ if the base word ends with the sound ‘d’ or ‘t’
adding ‘ed’ makes another syllable
• eg: sides, part-ed