The i before e Spelling Rule
The i before e Spelling Rule
Check out the song! The i before e Spelling Rule
Usually spell i before e (believe), but spell e before i after a c (receive) and when the letters are pronounced as a long /a/ sound (neighbor).
Exceptions to the rule: beige, caffeine, codeine, conscience, deify, deity, either, feign, feint, foreign, forfeit, freight, heifer, height, heinous, heir, heist, neither, protein, rein, science, seismic, seize, sheik, veil, vein, weird
Rig i before e
(to the tune of “Rig ‘a Jig Jig”)
Spell i before e ‘cause that’s the rule
Rig-a-jig-jig and away we go,
That we learned back in school.
Away we go, away we go!
But e before i comes after c,
Rig-a-jig-jig and away we go,
and when you hear long /a/. Hey!
Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho.
Find spelling rules with memorable raps and songs on CD, with a comprehensive whole-class diagnostic spelling assessment, enabling 4th–12th grade teachers to differentiate instruction with 35 remedial and 32 advanced spelling-vocabulary worksheets, spelling word lists/tests, Greek and Latin affixes/roots, syllable practice, and spelling-vocabulary games, and more in Mark’s book, Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary. Also check out Differentiated Spelling Instruction, the complementary fourth through eighth grade (Levels A-E) standards-based spelling series, designed to integrate instruction in spelling, structural analysis, and vocabulary. Each level has 32 weekly spelling pattern lessons and all the resources needed to differentiate spelling instruction: spelling pattern word lists with spelling sort worksheets, formative and summative assessments with recording matrices, review games, memory songs with MP3 links, supplementary word lists, and more.
