Sneaky e

I have been teaching my students the sneaky e rule since the end of October. I am proud to say, that after I have made a fool of myself pretending to be the sneaky e for the past six months, they finally get it!
Woo hoo! Don't you just love this time of year when the lightbulb has clicked on and they just magically know things you have been teaching since the first week of school.

I'm going to explain to you how I teach the sneaky/silent e rule and I would love, love, love to hear how you all teach it! I teach it at the end of October to go along with Halloween. I like to put on spooky music for fun. I put a word with a sneaky e on the board. Let's use "bake" as an example. I start at the e and draw footprints going from the e to the vowel (a). I tell my students that e likes to sneak up on vowels and yell, "BOO!".   So, when e  sneaks up on the a it screams its' name and says, "aaaaaaaaaa!" We like to do this as a whole class so every student gets a chance to scream. By the end of this lesson I usually have a headache and vow to think of another way to teach sneaky e! Once I teach this lesson, all I have to do when my students come to a sneaky e words is say, "what is at the end of that word?" This is all it takes to get them to sound out their word correctly.  Some of the kiddos that are not developmentally ready to sound out words, need extra help. I have these students sound out the words with me for practice.

Click below for a sneaky e worksheet to give kiddos extra practice!

If you liked the sneaky e worksheet and would like a sign for your classroom plus a memory or go fish game, you can go to my teachers pay teachers store by clicking on the pictures below.

How do you teach the sneaky e in your classroom? Thanks for stopping by!

-Shelley