OnTrack Reading

This page of the Guide has a worksheet you can download that will help your child understand why the ending consonant is doubled before adding certain suffixes to a CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word like hop, and also to CCVC and CCCVC words like stop and strap.

The previous page covered the use of three worksheets for familiarizing your child with the patterns created when root words with split vowel spellings (vowel+e words) have the suffixes ing, er and y added. Again, note that all of these suffixes, as well as the common suffix ed, begin with vowel letters.

One reasonably consistent pattern in English words is that in nearly all CVC, CCVC and CCCVC words, the vowel sound is the First Vowel Sound, that is, the short vowel sound. This is English we’re talking about, so of course there are exceptions (wad and put, for example) but it’s still approximately a 99%-reliable pattern.

Download the Worksheet Spelling CVC Words with Suffixes.

Use the link above to download the worksheet Spelling CVC Words with Suffixes and show your child the first word, hop. Ask your child to add ing to hop and then ask him to read what he’s written. If he, in fact, wrote hopping correctly offer some praise if you think it’s warranted and then ask why he doubled the letter p.

The correct answer is to keep hopping from looking like hoping, and that is the point that you need to make clear. Then, make the additional point that when the word contains a First Vowel Sound we double the ending consonant so that the vowel letter will keep the First Vowel Sound. If we didn’t do that, the result would look like a word in which the vowel sound was the Second Vowel Sound, that is, the letter name.

Now, if your child wrote hoping, thinking that he was actually writing hopping, tell him that the word he wrote isn’t hopping, but hoping and remind him that hope has the ending e dropped before ing is added. Once you’ve convinced him that he’s indeed written hoping, ask him if he recalls how to spell hopping. If not, introduce him to the concept of doubling the final consonant and go through the worksheet.

Go down the first column, letting your child first read the root word, then the same word with a suffix added. When he gets to the word miss point out that the root word already had a double consonant ending so all that needed to be done was add the suffix.

As with the other three worksheets, when you reach the second column, cover the root words and have your child read only the words with suffixes attached. These will probably be easier to read than the vowel+e words were, but if he struggles with one or two, just uncover the root word and have him read it first, after which he should easily read the same word with suffix attached.

After your child reads the last word, landing, uncover land and point out that the ending d was not doubled and ask if he knows why that is. At this point the a-e (a dash e) language becomes quite useful, because you can point out that the reason we are doubling all those ending consonants is to get two letters between the vowel letter and the suffix, and that we don’t have any “a dash dash e” pattern that we use like we do the a-e pattern. Since land already has two consonants after the a we don’t have to add another by doubling the ending d.

Finally, have your child go down the first column at the bottom adding ing to each of the five words. Note how he handles dress and end. Set the worksheet aside for a day or so and then have him do the second column as a review, again paying particular attention to the last two words, pass and hand.

Summing Up

If you do these four worksheets as suggested, you will have laid the groundwork for your child understanding why doubled consonants are generally useful markers for First Vowel Sounds in multisyllable words. He will also then understand the usefulness of the First Exception to the rule of stopping after the vowel sound in the multisyllable strategy discussed on the Page Multisyllable Decoding-1.

Next: First Vowel Sound Markers, or return to the OnTrack Reading Home Page