What is the Magic e?

Written By Leigh Monistere

The Importance of Vowels

Do you know what is the one thing that every word has? A vowel! 

Vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y can act as a vowel.  When reading smaller words in English, vowels are an important driver for how we read the word!  For this reason, it is important to learn that vowels can make more than one sound! When learning to read, the first sound we learn is the short vowel sound.

Short Vowels

Is your child identifying letter sounds and blending them together to make simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words? These are words like cat, hen, mitt, pot, and fun. If so, that means they have learned their short vowel sounds - bravo!

Check out this blog post for some tips on reading three-letter short vowel words.

Long Vowels

When your child is ready, you can let them in on a little secret: Vowels can also say their own name! It’s true. Oftentimes they do this because of a little sprinkling of the magic e! 

When the letter e is found at the end of a word, it has the power to turn the short vowel into a long vowel. Long vowel sound simply means that the vowel says its own name! Take the letter ‘a’ - instead of always saying short /a/ like apple, it can also say long /ā/ like ape. Let’s look at more examples.

From the table above, we can see how adding the letter e at the end of a CVC word turns the short vowel into a long vowel. The “magic” of the e is that we don’t make a sound for it - it’s silent - but it changes the vowel that comes before it.

Ready for some magic?

Magic Wand

Make a magic wand together out of a popsicle stick or by taping a drawing or something fun on the end of a pencil. Anything works! Show your child a simple CVC word like the word cap on a piece of paper or a whiteboard. Say, “Watch what I can do with my wand! I can create a magic e that changes this into a totally different word!” Write an e on the end of the word cap, wave your wand over it, and read “cape!” Explain how the /a/ in cap became an /a/ in cape! Ask your child to try one. Use the words in the table above to get you started.

Nonsense Words

Sometimes it can be really fun (and excellent practice) to read words that are not real words! Maybe you start with the word “pot.” With your magic wand and Magic e, you make the word, “pote” - wait, is pote a real word?! Noooo. Maybe you and your child can make up a funny meaning for the word pote (is it a dirty pot? A purple coat?).

Helpful Resources

Cultivating Literacy has a library of helpful videos to help you and your child practice reading long vowels with the Magic-e. Try working alongside your child with these videos:

Leigh Monistere
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Helping Your Child Read Simple Words