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4. More English Word Families

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Learning to spell English words family by family seems to be the most logical way to approach this subject, so we shall continue.  It will be YOUR responsibility to learn and practice the pronunciation of the words and to use a dictionary to be sure you know the meanings of the words.  All of the following words contain the Long O sound.

-ope Family -oap Family -oat Family -ote Family -oan Family -one Family
cope soap boat dote Joan bone
dope
  coat emote loan cone
hope   goat mote moan hone
lope

moat note roan pone
mope float rote   tone
Pope gloat tote   zone
rope bloat vote   phone
elope Click on pic for Photo Editing.   remote   drone

Note: There are very few Homonyms , words that sound the same but are spelled differently, in these lists.  That can aid your learning the words.  Learn the shorter list in each pair of word  families.  Then if you need to spell one of those words and it is not on the shorter list that you memorized, you can be pretty sure that it will be spelled the other way.  This method is not 100% sure, but it will help.

Example:  You hear rope.  You know the Long O + P sound is made with either -ope or -oap.  You remember that the  only word on the -oap list is soap.  Therefore, rope must be spelled with -ope.

End with Long U sound End with Long O sound End with Short U + F
-ew Family -ough Family -ow Family -ough Family -uff Family -ough Family
new through bow though buff enough
blew   know dough duff rough
knew   show although guff tough
dew   row   muff  
yew   stow   puff  
crew   mow   ruff  
threw   sow   stuff  
drew   low   bluff  
    crow   scuff  

Here are a few more smaller families:

Long A + M sound

aim, maim

came, blame, dame, lame, game, fame, name, same, tame
Long U + T sound

brute, flute

boot, coot, hoot, loot, moot, root, shoot, scoot, toot
Long I + N sound

sign, align

brine, dine, fine, line, mine, nine, pine, sine, tine, wine, refine, confine
Long U + N sound

dune, rune, tune

boon, croon, goon, loon, moon, noon, soon, spoon
Long O + L sound bowl, foal, goal, knoll, poll, roll, toll, troll, soul dole, hole, pole, sole, vole
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Reminder: Memorize the words in the shorter lists.  Then when you hear a word that belongs to one of these families but it is not on the shorter list that you memorized, you will know that it will probably be spelled the other way. 

The next page will  illustrate again the danger of spelling a word in English by the way it sounds or is pronounced.  Click HERE to proceed.

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