Silent e with a: a_e

A silent e at the end of a word doesn't make a sound, but it has a big job. It jumps back over one consonant and makes the vowel say its name. Watch: 'cap' has short a. Add e and it becomes 'cape', with long a. 'Tap' becomes 'tape'.

'Mad' becomes 'made'. The pattern is vowel, consonant, e, and we write it as a_e. Read: 'Jake ate a grape at the lake. ' Every a in a_e says /ay/. When you see a word ending in e, check the vowel before the consonant.

• 1Silent e makes no sound.
• 2It makes the vowel before it say its name.
• 3a_e words: cape, made, lake.