When adding suffixes to words that end in an e, how do we teach students when the e goes away and when it stays?

In words such as see and be, the e at the end of the word is actively making the sound /ee/, so when we add suffixes to these words, the e stays.

E.g. see + ing = seeing

• Make, the e is helping the a say its long sound /ay/. 
• Face, the e is helping the c say its soft sound /s/. 
• Edge, the e is helping the g say its soft sound /j/. 
• Leave, the e is helping the v as a v does not like to be at the end of a word alone.
• Pause, the e is helping the s say its noisy sound /z/.

When we add a suffix starting with a vowel to these words with a silent e, the e goes away before we add the suffix.

E.g. make + ing = making        edge = ing = edging        pause + ing = pausing

One other group of words is a little trickier. In words such as glue, the e is part of a digraph and so is not silent. When we add ing, the e stays, but if we add ed, we cannot have two e’s, so the e must go away.

E.g. glue + ing = glueing                 glue +ed = glued

Updated on: 03/09/2025