Having covered closed syllables in REVLOC, we now move on to “Magic E” syllables. The magic of the Magic E is that by adding the silent e to the end of a syllable, it “makes the vowel say its name.”

What is a Magic E Syllable?

Our pattern for a closed syllable is: consonant-vowel-consonant (cvc), as in pin

The pattern of the Magic E syllable is: vowel-consonant-silent e (vce) as in pine

With a closed syllable, the “closing in” with the consonant makes the vowel short. With Magic E, adding the e at the end makes the vowel in the middle long, or “makes it say its name.”

Examples of CVC to CVE

Din Dine
Hat Hate
Grim Grime
Slim Slime
Sit Site
Glad Glade
Kit Kite
Rip Ripe

When Should We Teach Magic E?

The Magic E concept can be taught at early as kindergarten. At my son’s school, they were learning sight word, after sight word. When I began helping him learn the words, I realized many of them had rules! I helped him memorize the word “make.” That was on the Dolch list and is there because it is a frequently used word.

How To Teach Magic E Using Phonemic Awareness Drills

After I taught my son the word, make, I told him the reason the vowel was long. I explained the magic e concept in comparison with the closed syllable. I then said, “If “make” is “make,” then what if I replaced the m with a c”? (Based on magic e), “It’s cake,” he said.

I also took words like mad, which I had taught him was a short a sound because it was closed, and I added an e to it and asked him what it was now. We went through several of these. And before you know it, he could read more than just sight words, he could read many words based on rules.

The sight words started to make more sense, too, because those that didn’t follow the rules had a place. Like the word “kind,” based on the rules should have a short i, right? But it doesn’t so it’s a sight word. Same with the word “love.” Should have a long o, right? But it doesn’t. In many cases, as with the words above, these are very old anglo-saxon words.

Magic E Activity

In one OG course, we made cards that folded over and had an “e” on the flap. We took an index card and wrote “dim” on one side of it, folded it over and put an e on the flap.

When showing this to a student and teaching the concepts of closed versus magic e syllables, the student reads the word “dim,” we flap the e at the end of it and ask what it is now. “Dime.” We made a deck of these to go through.

After going through the deck, we ask that the student write sentences that we say out loud (dictation). Then have the student read the sentence out loud.