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What is the ‘magic e’?
28 Mar 2017
The proper name for ‘magic e’ is ‘split digraph’, and it means that a vowel sound has been split.
A digraph is two letters which together make one sound (as in the words tail, boat, found or read).
When a digraph is split by a consonant it becomes a split digraph. For example:
- wrote – the 'oe' here make one sound. The 'oe' digraph is split by the 't'
- lake – the 'ae' here make one sound. The 'ae' digraph is split by the 'k'.
- complete – the 'ee' here make one sound. The 'ee' digraph is split by the 't'.
Have a go at reading some of these words:
flame
slime
broke
mabe
fibe
chope