Since not very many high-frequency words in the English language follow a long 'e' + consonant + silent -e pattern, we have included three other common spelling patterns for making the long 'e' sound in these three levels.

Level 4-7 focuses on words where an 'ee' combo makes a long 'e' sound, while level 4-8 focuses on words where an 'ea' combo makes a long 'e' sound. Level 4-9 demonstrates an interesting spelling pattern for your students to learn: that a -y ending that is preceded by a consonant often makes a long 'e' sound in multi-syllabic words (happy, funny, study, etc.).

In your teaching, you will want to contrast this pattern to words that end with a vowel and then a -y (enjoy, boy, day, play) to help your students see that the ending -y sounds very different depending on what comes directly before it. You might then consider having students try to come up with common words ending in a consonant and then -y where the y does not make a long -e sound (cry, why, try, fly).

Can they notice the difference between one-syllable words (where a 'y' preceded by a consonant usually makes a long 'i' sound) and multi-syllable words (where a 'y' preceded by a consonant generally makes a long 'e' sound)? This would be a good minilesson to teach your students before they work on level 4-9!