and this can affect their

pronunciation.

We're going to look at

two common examples

of this today.

Firstly, an 'e' at the end

of a word can change

the pronunciation

of the vowel before it.

'Bit' is a short /i/ sound

and 'bite' is a long /ai/ sound.

'Mat' is a short /ae/ sound

and 'mate' is a long /ei/ sound.

However, there are many

exceptions to this rule.

'Love', 'come', 'some' and 'have'

all have e's at the end,

but the vowel sound is short.

Here's another rule -

when a word ends with

consonant plus 'l' + 'e',

we add an 'ul' sound to

the word: 'little', 'circle', 'able'.

These are two easy rules for

pronouncing words ending

with a silent 'e'. They should

make things simple for you

when reading new words.