1. If a base word ends in an e which is part of a split digraph, drop the e if the suffix begins with a vowel (e.g. hope – hoping; like – liked: the e before the d is part of the suffix, not part of the base word). Keep the e if the suffix begins with a consonant (e.g. hope – hopeful; safe – safely).
2. If a base word ends in y preceded by a consonant, change the y to i before all suffixes except those beginning with i (e.g. happy – happiness, happier; baby – babies; carry – carried). Keep the y if the suffix begins with i, not permissible in English (e.g. baby – babyish; carry – carrying), as ii is not permissible in English except in taxiing and skiing.
3. If a base word ends in a single consonant letter preceded by a single vowel letter and the suffix begins with a vowel, double the consonant letter. Another way of stating this guideline is that there need to be two consonant letters between a ‘short’ vowel (vowel sounds learned in Phase Two) and a suffix beginning with a vowel (e.g. hop – hopped, hopping; red – redder, reddest; run – running, runner).In all other cases, the suffix can simply be added without any change being made to the spelling of the base word. This means that for words in 1 and 3 above, the spelling of the base word does not change if a suffix beginning with a consonant is added (e.g. lame + ness = lameness; glad + ly = gladly). Similarly, no change occurs if the base word ends in any way other than those mentioned in 1, 2 and 3 above.
