What Are the 3 Sounds of -ED? (Simple Explanation + Examples)

Hearing letter sounds is a major key to learning to write and understand English. It can be confusing because many letters or letter combinations have more than one sound.

Today, let’s dive into one of those combinations to unlock a lot of words in reading and spelling – the 3 sounds of ed.

The 3 Sounds of -ED Explained

The suffix –ed is used to represent the past tense. What is important to notice about the suffix –ed is that it makes three distinctly different sounds. In Orton-Gillingham (or any structured literacy approach), we first teach -ed as 3 sounds before teaching it as a suffix.

Drill Cards in Two Places

In OG, we first teach -ed as a phonogram sound and make sure to use auditory drills as much as written, if not more. We want these sounds mastered before we move to suffixes.

The -ed drill card is in two places.

First, it’s in the Consonant Reading Deck, used as a phonogram drill.   It’s not so much about -ed being a suffix at this point, as a letter combination with three sounds.  

The /ed/ sound is also used after a word ending in a d or t (the letter, not the sound). For example, melted or sanded. Those words will have the sound /ed/ for the -ed.

Second, -ed drill card is in the Suffix Deck.

The Sounds of -ed and 1^st Suffixes are one right after another on the scope and sequence – the point is to make sure the student grasps that -ed has three sounds before diving into suffixes.

Hear it? Let’s Practice the Sounds of -ED

• Rented — /ed/  (said like the name, Ed) some say /?d/ for this sound).
• Jumped — /t/ (sounds like the sound of a “t”)
• Sailed — /d/  (Sounds like a “d”)

A sentence to represent this  (and practice) is: He rented a boat, jumped in, and sailed off.

-ED Word Lists

Below are word lists of the three different sounds.

It is good to dictate these words to students, have them write what you are saying, and be sure to have student read back what has been written. If the student is too young to write the words in dictation, have them write the sound -ed is making (rather than the whole word).

-ed = /ed/           This sound comes after a t or d

Examples: melted, twisted, planted, rented, mended, printed, rusted, acted, blasted, sanded, punted, salted.

-ed = /d/             

Examples: grilled, banged, smiled, saved, shelled, drilled, spilled, yelled, changed, filmed, ganged

-ed = /t/

Examples: masked, jumped, fished, skipped, asked, camped, blocked, checked, kicked, dumped, honked, limped

More Advanced words: rowed (d), slipped (t), scraped (t), smelled (d), stepped (t), snowed (d), turned (d), filled (d)

An Activity with ED

A great activity is to have words at the top and a grid under the word bank.  At the top of the grid have words with the –ed sounds.

Ask students to put the words under the correct –ed sound. Have students go through each word and read them out loud. This is the time you can talk with them about what was heard and if there are any trouble spots, help figure out what’s going on.

Ready to Teach The 3 Sounds of -ED? If you’re ready to teach this with hands-on practice, I’ve put together activities and a video here

Remember, this is an auditory exercise as much as a written exercise.

For Example:

melted                  grilled                   jumped               punted                 limped                  filmed

-ed = /ed/	-ed = /d/	-ed = /t/
melted	grilled	jumped
punted	filmed	limped