CVCe Words (Beginner’s Guide to Magic E)

After CVC words, your child is ready to learn CVCE words. Grab some tips and a free CVCE word list and CVCE word anchor chart in this post.

One of the most common questions I get is:

“My child can read CVC words. What do I do next?”

The truth is there is no hard-and-fast rule. But after they learn CVC words, they are ready to learn CVCe words.

These words are called Magic e in many classrooms. And it does seem like magic.

Because once your child learns how to read CVCe words, they can really get reading!

CVCe word list printable on a clipboard on top of a notebook on a brown table. Teal text box reads in black and white letters CVCe Word List

What is a CVCe word?

A CVCE word is a four-letter word that follows this pattern:

  • consonant
  • vowel
  • consonant
  • silent e

Once children get comfortable with reading the short vowel sounds, they are ready to learn the long vowel sounds. To do this, they need to learn the CVCe rule.

What’s the CVCE rule?

The CVCE rule is that the final silent e makes the vowel sound long.  The e has no sound of its own – its job is just to help the other vowel letter.

However, this is only one of the jobs of silent e. Before you teach your child Magic e or the CVCe rule – make sure you know all the jobs.

To teach your child the CVCE rule, compare the words to CVC words without the magic e.

What’s the difference between CVC and CVCE?

The difference between a CVC and CVCE word is the vowel sound. The vowel is short in CVC and long in CVCE.

Consider these word pairs to illustrate the difference:

  • mat and mate
  • pet and Pete
  • pin and pine
  • rob and robe
  • cub and cube

Adding that silent e changes the sound and creates a word with a brand new meaning. There is no relationship between a CVC word and a word with the same letters that end in silent e.

How do I teach the CVCe rule?

I love to teach all phonics skills with sound flashcards. It helps children learn to correctly identify sounds first.

Then they can line up a few sound flashcards to build a word to sound out phonetically.

You can make your own flashcards like those pictured above, or grab these cards in my reading course for parents, Sounds School.

Teach your child that the e has no sound. But when it is there, it changes the vowel sound from short to long.

What are some examples of CVCe words?

Here are a few more examples of CVCE words to get you started:

  • rate, made, cake, pane
  • Pete, gene, here, these
  • bike, dine, like, pile
  • bone, hope, vote, mole
  • cube, tune, fuse, mule

Note that there are very few CVCE words with long e. Most long e words are spelled with ee and ea.

cvce word list and cvce anchor chart printables screenshot graphic with a pink half circle with the word free in white letters

CVCe Words List

You can use this CVCE words list to help your child learn how to read CVCe words.

There are many words on this list with soft c and soft g like cage and mice. Do not use these words initially. Stick with words like take, line and cube where the consonant sounds correspond with the basic alphabet phonics sounds.

Please note there are very few Long E CVCE words. Plus the ones included tend to be more complicated with other advanced phonics rules like soft g.

Note when you see a letter in between slashes, it means to say the sound, not the letter name. When you see the line up above the letter, it is the long vowel sound.

CVCE words with Long A

These are some words have the /ā/ sound. Remember, wait to practice words like face and race until your child knows the soft c.

  1. bake
  2. cage
  3. cake
  4. case
  5. cave
  6. date
  7. face
  8. fade
  9. game
  10. gate
  11. lake
  12. make
  13. male
  14. name
  15. page
  16. race
  17. rake
  18. sale
  19. same
  20. save

Long E CVCE Words

There are not as many CVCE words with long e. It’s not as common as the ee and ea spelling pattern:

  1. eve
  2. gene
  3. here
  4. Pete
  5. theme
  6. these
  7. scene
  8. Steve
  9. delete
  10. extreme

Long I CVCE Words

These words have CVCE pattern with long i sound:

  1. bike
  2. bite
  3. dime
  4. dine
  5. dive
  6. fine
  7. fire
  8. five
  9. hide
  10. hike
  11. hive
  12. kite
  13. life
  14. like
  15. lime
  16. line
  17. live
  18. mice
  19. mine
  20. nice
  21. nine
  22. pike
  23. pine
  24. pipe
  25. rice
  26. ride
  27. rise
  28. side
  29. size
  30. tide
  31. tire
  32. wide
  33. wise

Long O CVCE Words

These words have the CVCE spelling pattern and long o:

  1. bone
  2. code
  3. cone
  4. cope
  5. cove
  6. dome
  7. dose
  8. dove
  9. doze
  10. hole
  11. home
  12. hope
  13. hose
  14. joke
  15. lone
  16. nose
  17. note
  18. poke
  19. pole
  20. pose
  21. robe
  22. rode
  23. rose
  24. tone
  25. vote
  26. woke
  27. yoke
  28. zone

Long U CVCE Words

There are not as many long u words with a CVCE spelling pattern.  Note some have the sound /yoo/ and some have the sound /ōō/:

  1. cute
  2. cube
  3. fume
  4. fuse
  5. huge
  6. mule
  7. muse
  8. mute
  9. puke
  10. tube
  11. rude
  12. rule
  13. tune
  14. June

CVCe Words ANCHOR CHART

When children are learning a new sound, it can be really helpful to hook the spelling patterns to an image.

These pictures serve as an anchor where your child can attach the symbols to the sounds.

You can display this chart. It is also fun to play a game with it. Grab one of your child’s favorite action figures like a Paw Patrol toy.

Take your word list and read a word to your child. Ask your child to tell you the vowel sound. Then tell them to put their action figure on the picture that has the same vowel sound.

It sounds like this:

  • Parent: Mice. Repeat the word mice.
  • Child: Mice.
  • Parent: What vowel sound do you hear?
  • Child: /I/ (long i sound)
  • Parent: That’s right. Now put your Chase toy on the picture with the /I/ (long i) sound.
cvce words with pictures printable on a gray background with the word free in white letters inside a pink half circle

CVCE WORDS WITH PICTURES

You can grab this anchor chart with CVCE Words with pictures. One thing we cannot forget when teaching phonics step-by-step:

The point of reading is to comprehend or understand text.

So connecting sounds to letters to the meaning helps words make more sense and become more permanent.

The pictures included in the CVCE words with pictures are:

  • cake
  • Pete
  • bike
  • home
  • cube
  • game
  • bite
  • note
  • mute

You can display this chart for your child. You can also play a game with it!

Write one of the words on a whiteboard. Ask your child to sound out the word phonetically.

Then show them the chart and ask them to find the right correct. They can check the word written below the picture and make sure it matches the whiteboard!

CVCe Word Families

While we want children to be able to decode CVCE words. But sometimes it helps to group words into CVCE word families as you teach them.

There are word family for CVCE words with long a, long i and long o. There aren’t enough CVCE long e and long u words to create word families.

These word families include CVCE words. I also included CCVCE words.

Once your child can read consonant digraphs and consonant blends, they can master even more magic e words!

long a cvce word families list

CVCE Long A Words families

These are common long a CVCe word families:

  • -ace
  • -ade
  • -age
  • -ake
  • -ale
  • -ame
  • -ane
  • -ate
  • -ave
long i cvce word family list

long i CVCe words

  • -ice
  • -ide
  • -ife
  • -ike
  • -ile
  • -ime
  • -ine
  • -ipe
  • -ire
  • -ite
  • -ive
long o cvce word list

Long O words

  • -obe
  • -ode
  • -oke
  • -ole
  • -ome
  • -one
  • -ose
  • -ote
  • -ove

Resources for learning CVCE Words

Need some resources and activities to help your child or students learn CVCE words? I got you covered!

CVCe word mapping

The CVCE Word Mapping Activity makes learning CVCE words hands-on.

It uses the process of sound-spelling mapping to help children learn words more quickly.

This activity includes 30+ other phonics skills in addition to CVCE words. So your child will get tons of practice to master all sorts of skills.

Grab in the Printable Parents’ Shop or on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Phonics four in a row games

My favorite way to engage children in learning phonics skills is games! With printable games, your child or students will read dozens of words without really realizing it!

This Four in a Row game is a twist on the classic game Connect Four. However, in this printable game, you can move in any direction. So there is a ton of strategy that makes it more motivating for a lot of struggling readers.

You can grab the Phonics Four in a Row Games for CVCE and dozens of other skills in the Printable Parents’ Shop.

Phonics Box Game

Your child will love this classic game of lines and dots. They’ll enjoy the game so much that they won’t notice how much decoding they are doing!

To play, your child just reads a word a draws a line to connect two dots. The second player does the same anywhere on the game board. Whichever player draws the fourth line to form a box, gets to claim it as their own. The person with the most boxes wins!

Check out the Phonics Box Game in the Printable Parents’ Shop.

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