New
New
Year 5

Investigating the ‘ee’ sound spelt ‘ie’ or ‘ei’

I can spell words using ‘ie’ or ‘ei’ to make the ‘ee’ sound.

New
New
Year 5

Investigating the ‘ee’ sound spelt ‘ie’ or ‘ei’

I can spell words using ‘ie’ or ‘ei’ to make the ‘ee’ sound.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. There are many ways to spell the ‘ee’ sound. ‘ee’, ‘ea’ and ‘e-e’ are the most common.
  2. The spellings ‘e’, ‘y’, ‘ey’, ‘ie’ and ‘ei’ are other ways to represent the ‘ee’ phoneme.
  3. The rule ‘i before e except after c’ can help us choose between ‘ie’ and ‘ei’ when spelling ‘ee’.
  4. There are exceptions, including ‘protein’, ‘caffeine’ and ‘seize’.
  5. How to spell the curriculum words: achieve, believe and possess.

Common misconception

When sorting 'ee' spellings, children can assume all the identified graphemes are making the 'ee' sound.

Stretch the 'red herring' words with an identified grapheme that makes a different sound e.g. qu-i-e-t. The same spelling can represent a range of sounds.

Keywords

  • Exception - a case or situation that does not follow the usual or expected rule or pattern

  • Phoneme - the smallest unit of sound that can change a word's meaning

  • Grapheme - the letter or group of letters that represent a sound (the spelling)

It may help to use the terms sound and phoneme interchangably, and spelling and grapheme interchangably to help pupils make links to their phonic learning, but do not use the terms sound and spelling interchangably, as they mean different things.
Teacher tip

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Loading...

6 Questions

Q1.
Choose the correct 'ee' spelling that goes in these words.
Correct Answer:week,ee

ee

Correct Answer:athlete,e-e

e-e

Correct Answer:heat,ea

ea

Q2.
Match the grapheme representing the phoneme 'ee' to where they commonly appear in a word.
Correct Answer:ea,anywhere in a word

anywhere in a word

Correct Answer:ee,in the middle or at the end of a word

in the middle or at the end of a word

Correct Answer:e-e,'last but one'

'last but one'

Q3.
Select the words which contain the long vowel ee sound.
they
Correct answer: sunny
Correct answer: thief
stay
Correct answer: money
Q4.
Match the grapheme representing the phoneme 'ee' sound to where it commonly appears in a word.
Correct Answer:e,often at the beginning or the end of a word

often at the beginning or the end of a word

Correct Answer:ey,often at the end of a word

often at the end of a word

Correct Answer:ie,often in the middle of a word

often in the middle of a word

Q5.
Correct the spelling of the word in bold in the following sentence. She smiled happiley during the performance.
Correct Answer: happily
Q6.
Choose the spellings that can represent the phoneme 'ee'.
Correct answer: ee
Correct answer: ea
a-e
oe
Correct answer: ie

6 Questions

Q1.
Match the words linked to the rule 'i before e, except after c'.
Correct Answer:thief,'i before e' words

'i before e' words

Correct Answer:receive,'except after c' words

'except after c' words

Correct Answer:protein,exception to the rule words

exception to the rule words

Q2.
Select the words that apply the rule 'i before e, except after c'.
tie
Correct answer: belief
caffeine
Correct answer: deceive
eight
Q3.
Select the correct spelling of the word.
feeled
Correct answer: field
feild
Q4.
Select the correct spelling of the word.
ceeling
cieling
Correct answer: ceiling
Q5.
Correct the spelling of the word in bold in the sentence. The police caught the theef.
Correct answer: thief
Q6.
Correct the spelling of the word in bold in the sentence. What is your bileef?
Correct Answer: belief

Additional material

Download additional material
We're sorry, but preview is not currently available. Download to see additional material.