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3. Word Families Sound Alike and Look Alike |
| We will use the term Memory Helper in this lesson. This is simply any trick or gimmick you can think of that will help you remember which words are spelled alike - which ones belong to the same family. We have made up silly sentences using two or more words from the same family with the idea that if you know how to spell one of the rhyming words, then you will know how to spell the others because they will have the same endings. If you know the words already, there is no need to do this, but if you have trouble with some of them, this may help. You will also be using the words correctly in a sentence, hopefully, which will improve your vocabulary. |
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1. Words that have the Long A+R sound. This sound is represented by several different spelling combinations in English. If you think of the different spellings as different families, then you can remember the words by what family they are part of.
-air
Family:
fair, hair, lair, stair, chair, pair, affair, repair, unfair
2. Words that have the Long E+R sound. This sound also has a few families. Remember the words as part of a family.
-ear
Family: dear,
ear, fear, gear, hear, near, rear, sear, tear, year, clear
3. Words that have the Long A+T sound. This group has one very strange family in it, but there are not very many members in the family, so you should be able to remember them easily.
-ate
Family: ate,
bate, date, fate, gate, hate, late, mate, pate, rate, sate, rotate
4.
Words that have the Long A + N sound can
be a pain.
This
family has two main branches and a couple of poor cousins.
-ain Family: Cain,
-eign Family: deign, feign, reign.
-ein Family: rein, vein.
Memory Helpers:
5. Words with the Long E + N sound can be seen next: Divided into four family groups, these words can be as much trouble as any you have seen so far.
-een Family: between, careen, seen, teen, keen, preen, spleen, queen.
-ean Family: bean, dean, lean, mean, wean, clean.
-ene Family: scene, gene, neoprene, kerosene, carotene, xylene.
-ine Family: gasoline, Vasoline, Visine, dexodrine
Memory Helpers: "I've seen the teen queen preen between dates." "The mean Dean made me clean every bean."
6. Words that have the Long A + L sound: This group has only two families that I can think of, plus one odd cousin.
-ale Family: bale, dale, hale, gale, kale, male, pale, sale, tale, whale, vale, Yale
-ail Family: ail, bail, fail, flail, hail, jail, mail, nail, pail, rail, sail, snail, tail, wail, retail
-eil Cousin: veil
Memory Helpers: "The pale male whale got caught in the gale." "The man from Yale bought a bale of kale that was on sale." "If you fail to make bail, you'll get your next mail in jail."
We have described an effective way to study spelling words on some of the other pages, including the Spelling Clues page. Use that method to study any of the words on this page that you do not already know well. With the Word Families especially, it will be important to have someone dictate the words to you as you spell them and use them in sentences so you get used to the sounds of the words and their relationship to their spelling.
To see More Word Families, click HERE.
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