Amal Al-Sibai

Saudi Gazette

 

You have been on holiday for about 3 months. But it feels like it went by so fast because you were having so much fun swimming, playing with friends, watching cartoons, and going to amusement parks, the zoo, summer camp, library, and all the other fun things that kids do.



Reading books in the summer is a lot of fun too, but if you are like most kids, you probably did not do a lot of studying and writing. You may have gotten a little rusty in your spelling and forgotten some of the hints about spelling that your English teacher taught you last year.



School is only a few days away. Now is a great time to remember some important spelling rules that will make spelling easy and help you get A’s on spelling tests and win the school spelling bee this year.

 

• A silent ‘e’ at the end of the word makes the vowel in the middle of the word say its name. That means that when there is only one vowel in the word and it has a long sound, there is always a silent ‘e’ at the end of the word. For example, you eat cake not cak, the magician’s cape not cap, you stick paper with tape not tap, a boy fell in the hole not hol.
  
   


• Lots of kids mix up which comes first: ‘i’ or ‘e.’ This rule works most of the time: ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’. Words with ‘i’ before ‘e:’ field, believe, thief, chief, achieve, piece, friend. Words with ‘e’ before ‘i’ because they came after ‘c:’ ceiling, receive, deceive, conceited When ‘i’ and ‘e’ come together they do not make the ‘ee’ sound, usually the ‘e’ comes before the ‘i’ like in: neighbor, weigh, height, beige, foreign.
  
   


• In words that have the ‘s’ sound at the end, how do I know if I should write ‘se’ like defense or ‘ce’ like peace? Not all the time but in most cases, words with 1 syllable with a long vowel sound in the middle will end in ‘ce,’ such as: face, peace, ice, race, rice, slice, space, dice, piece.
  
   


• There is no word in the English language that ends in the letter ‘j.’ If you are confused whether to write a ‘j’ or ‘ge’ at the end of a word like garage, always write ‘ge’ and sometimes ‘dge’ but never ‘j.’ Examples are: cage, strange, stage, bridge, page, fridge, change, large, cottage, package, charge.
  
   


• There is no word in the English language that ends in the letter ‘v.’ Do not forget the ‘e’ at the end of your words! Examples: live, give, love, active, positive, above, sensitive, move, dive.
  
   


• The letter ‘q’ never comes alone, so always write qu when you have any word with the letter ‘q:’ quiet, queen, quick, request, acquire, equal.
  
   


• In simple words with 1 syllable, when you have the letter ‘l’ or ‘f’ or ‘s’ at the end, you will double those letters. Short words like: full, pull, will, puff, off, cliff, dress, glass.
  
   


• At the end of a word, when do I use ‘ck’ and when do I use ‘k?’ If there is no other letter after the vowel in the word and the vowel has a short sound, the ending is ‘ck,’ such as luck, duck, lick, kick, brick, smack, truck, lock, sock. But, when there is another letter after the vowel, then you should use ‘k’ for the ending and not ‘ck,’ such as bank, ask, stink, flask, chalk, desk, pink, think, leak, weak (words with a long vowel sound end in k not ck)
  
   


• Remember that your verbs when changed to past tense, end in ed not t, even if it sounds like a t, such as danced, walked, talked, brushed, popped, reached.
  
  
  
   

Learning such rules can help make spelling as easy as A B C. Also read a lot, practice spelling words, and play games like scrabble and word search.



It is important to learn good spelling because even if you use the computer to write your essays, the spell checker on your computer will not catch all your spelling mistakes. Look at the two sentences and try to find the spelling mistakes in the second sentence that the computer did not find. “I might need some new shoes for gym class.” “Eye mite knead sum knew shoos four Jim class.”