Soft <c> and Silent Final <e>

When the letter <c> has an <e>, <i>, or <y> right after it, it spells the sound [s] and is called soft <c>. Otherwise, it spells the sound [k] and is called hard <c>.

Examples

Below are examples of words that have a soft <c> and final silent <e>:

twice       ignorance       office       fierce

The words below are examples of the sound [k] also known as a hard <c>:

comic       traffic         fabric        maniac

Review

Pronounce these words:

$$\begin{align*}& \text{fabric} && \text{price} \\ & \text{arc} && \text{ignorance} \\ & \text{traffic} && \text{rejoice} \\ & \text{democratic} && \text{twice} \\ & \text{mechanic} && \text{office} \\ & \text{maniac} && \text{fierce} \\ & \text{comic} && \text{since}\end{align*}$$

1. Do the words in the left column end with a hard <c> or with a soft <c>? ________

2. Do the words in the right column end with a hard <c> or with a soft <c>? _________

3. Why are the <c>s in the right column soft <c>s? _________.

4. Why are the <c>s in the left column hard <c>s? _________.

5. One of the jobs of silent final <e> is to mark a <c> right before it as soft. In the words in the right column the final <e>s are all marking <c>’s as being soft. But in two of the words in the right column the final <e> is also marking the preceding vowel as being long. Those two words are: ____________ and ___________.

6. So far you’ve seen two different jobs that final <e> can do: Final <e> can mark a preceding vowel as being __________ . Final <e> can mark a preceding <c> as being __________. And sometimes a final <e> can do both things at once — as in the word lace.

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