The Many Jobs of Silent ‘e’

One of the first phonics rules students learn in Kindergarten is the job of “silent e” or “magic e.” Most of us know or remember this rule as applying to words that end in a “vowel-consonant-e” pattern. The ‘e’ at the end of the word makes the vowel before it long (so ‘cap’ becomes ‘cape’ when we add on an ‘e’). This is by far the most well-known rule for ‘silent e.’ But this special little vowel actually does many other jobs, too.

The Jobs of ‘Silent e’

1. Makes the Vowel Before it Say its Name

This is the rule you probably already knew. The rule states that for any word ending in VCe (vowel consonant ‘e’), the vowel before the ‘e’ becomes long. This rule applies to almost all words. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule in the English language. Those exceptions are usually what we call sight words.

2. Helps you distinguish between plurals

Most of the time, when an ‘s’ comes at the end of a word, it signifies a plural. For words that end in ‘se,’ the ‘e’ tells us that the word is not meant to be plural. An example of this is the word ‘tense,’ which without the ‘e’ would be the pluralized ‘tens.’

3. Softens Preceding ‘c’ and ‘g’

The letters ‘c’ and ‘g’ can make hard or soft sounds depending on the word in which they appear. The hard sounds are formed in words like ‘cat and ‘gap’ and soft sounds are formed in words like lace, chance, cage, and badge. These letters become soft anytime they are followed by an ‘i,’ a ‘y,’ and, of course, ‘silent e.’

4. Adds a vowel to syllables that don’t have one

A general rule of the English language is that all syllables must contain at least one vowel. When words end in consonant blends, they need to have a vowel in them, and that’s where ‘silent e’ comes in. For words like ‘syllable,’ that ‘e’ needs to be on the end so that ‘bl’ are not by themselves at the end of the word!

5. Makes the ‘th’ voiced when at the end of a word

The ‘silent e’ also voices the ‘th’ digraph, which is more typically unvoiced (meaning we don’t make a tonal sound when we speak this phoneme). In words like ‘with’ and ‘thought,’ the ‘th’ digraph is unvoiced. In the words ‘breathe,’ ‘soothe,’ and ‘teethe,’ the digraph becomes voiced thanks to that ‘silent e.’

6. Prevents words from ending in i, u, v, or z.

Another rule states that the letters i, u, v, and z cannot end a word in the English language. When a word ends in these sounds, there is automatically a ‘silent e’ ending in order to keep this rule intact.