TEACHER MASTER KEY & PEDAGOGICAL GUIDE WHEELER'S SPELLER • LESSON 60 (PAGE 35) OFFICIAL INSTRUCTOR GUIDE
LESSON 60 CURRICULUM BLUEPRINT • DIGRAPHS ēe / ēa & MORPHOLOGY
Poetic Analysis • Dropping Final Silent -e • Doubling Consonants Rule • Rhyming Families
Poetry & Suffix Mechanics
Complete Orthographic & Morphological Matrix Wheeler's Speller p. 35
Category Target Words & IPA Phonological & Morphological Rule
Poem Digraphs (ēe / ēa) dream /driːm/ leaves /liːvz/
wheat /wiːt/ sweet /swiːt/
heat /hiːt/ 		Vowel teams ee and ea represent the long front tense vowel /iː/. Notice initial consonant cluster /sw-/ in sweet, /dr-/ in dream, and digraph /w/ or /hw/ in wheat.
Morphology: Dropping -e waving ← wave Base word wave ends in silent final e. The e is dropped before attaching the inflectional suffix -ing to prevent double vowel clash.
Morphology: Doubling Rule hidden ← hid Base word hid consists of a single short vowel followed by a single consonant (CVC). The final d is doubled before suffix -en to preserve the short /ɪ/ vowel sound.
Rhyming Families wheat / sweet / heat
brooks / nooks 		Identical rimes spelled with alternating vowel teams (-eat vs -eet). Brooks and nooks demonstrate the short oo (/ʊ/) sound before /k/.
Socratic Morphology Dialogue
Q: "Look at the word waving. What base word did it come from?"
Child: "It came from the word wave!"
Q: "Where did the silent e go?"
Child: "We dropped it before adding -ing!"
Teacher Principle: Explain that suffixes beginning with a vowel (-ing, -ed, -er) cause silent final -e to drop.
Why Double the Consonant in Hidden?
Q: "Why do we write hidden with two d's instead of one?"
Child: "If we only wrote one d, it might look like hiden and sound like long i!"
Teacher Principle: The doubled consonant creates a closed syllable, protecting the short vowel /ɪ/ from turning into a long open vowel sound.
Exercise Master Answer Keys
Exercise 1 (Digraph Hunt):
1. dream (/driːm/ - line 1)
2. leaves (/liːvz/ - line 2)
3. wheat (/wiːt/ - line 2)
4. sweet (/swiːt/ - line 3)
5. heat (/hiːt/ - line 4)
Exercise 2 (Morphology Detective):
• Case A (waving): 1. Base root = wave. 2. Letter dropped = silent e.
• Case B (hidden): 1. Base root = hid (or hide). 2. Letter doubled = consonant d.
Exercise 3 (Rhyme & Phonogram Sorting):
• Rhyme Family 1 (-eat / -eet): wheat, sweet, heat.
• Rhyme Family 2 (-ooks): brooks, nooks.
Exercise 4 (Creative Synthesis):
Sample response: The happy birds dream of cool green leaves and waving wheat in the summer. They rest in shady nooks to hide from the warm heat.
Graded Dictation Sentences (Oral Administration)
1. The little birds dream of waving golden wheat and sweet flowers.
2. Cool brooks flow through shady nooks hidden from the summer heat.
3. Gentle summer breezes were waving the green leaves on the trees.
4. We found a hidden nest resting quietly beneath the sweet clover.
Wheeler's Elementary Speller • Lesson 60 Instructor Master Guide Poetic Analysis • Digraphs ēe & ēa • Suffix Morphology (Page 35) Page 2 of 2 (Master Key)