What is the poem to help learn the ie/ei words?
It goes something like I before E if it sounds like.....TIA!

By Ginny~moderator on Thursday, January 5, 2006 - 08:40 pm:

I before E except after C or when sounded like A as in neighbor or eight. (alternatively, or when followed by G as in neighbor or eight.)

By Annie2 on Thursday, January 5, 2006 - 08:45 pm:

Thank YOU!!!!! Ginny

By Kate on Thursday, January 5, 2006 - 08:45 pm:

I thought it was 'I before E except after C or when sounded like A as in neighbor or weigh' (weigh rhyming with 'A')

No difference, of course, it just might be easier with the sing-songy rhymy way.

By Annie2 on Thursday, January 5, 2006 - 08:51 pm:

Going through dd's vocab list everything rang true except the word seize? The english language makes no sense! LOL

By Pamt on Thursday, January 5, 2006 - 09:12 pm:

Annie, you are so right! It would be much easier on us all if we spoke Spanish where each letter makes 1 specific sound...always. Try teaching dyslexic kids to read and spell. That's what I do every day and as we analyze words together I get more and more baffled by how screwy English is. There are no "rules" only exceptions. We'll be plugging along learning that when you have a consonant-vowel-consonant-silent "e" word, that the "e" makes the vowel long, like in "cake, Pete, kite, pope, cube" but then you invariably have words like "have" or "gone" where that rule is totally out the window. English drives me insane sometimes!!

By Ginny~moderator on Friday, January 6, 2006 - 07:40 am:

Sadly, Pam, you are right. English has few hard and fast rules and exceptions to almost every rule. It is the product of being a "bastard" language, taking in words from so many other languages and usually not taking the rule from the other language with the word. In addition, we have so many words that mean more than one thing - glass/glasses is an example I used with our Guatemalan refugees. It is a dreadful language to learn if you are not a native English speaker - and even we in the English speaking community differ in what specific words mean, spending on where you live.

Annie, you'll just have to (sigh) teach your daughter that in English there are always exceptions and the only thing to do is memorize the exceptions.

By Happynerdmom on Friday, January 6, 2006 - 10:44 am:

I loved what ds's 2nd grade teacher used to do...some words got put behind bars, because they broke the rule! She'd say, "That word needs to go to jail, doesn't it?" Lots of words got put in jail, lol.

By Dawnk777 on Friday, January 6, 2006 - 03:07 pm:

I before E except after C.

On New Year's Eve, we played Cranium. Emily was our "spell it backwards" Queen!

Her first word was receipt! So, not only did she have to remember i before e except after c, she had to do it backwards as well! She did it correctly!

When we were packing up the game to go home, someone saw Catastrophe on one of the cards. Just for fun, Emily spelled it backwards and got it right! My friend's husband was totally amazed. She got every word right, that she spelled backwards. I think he has trouble doing words backwards. Also, this was in her head. You couldn't use pencil and paper to keep track of the letters!