Decoding exercises: "ea"

**IPA consonants**

This page sets out some common words that can be used to become more aware of how you can sound out more correctly the different sounds corresponding to words containing "ea", mainly
/iː/, /e/, /eɪ/,
/ɪə/, /ɜː/ and /eə/.

Depending on their mother tongue (L1), students may have difficulty distinguishing between these two sounds. More often than not, these supposed difficulties depend more on the interference of L1 than on the actual difficulties posed by English, and many, if not most students will greatly improve their pronunciation by simply becoming aware of certain differences - together with a minimum of practice.

## /iː/

* as **/iː/**: beach - bead - beat - bleach - breathe - cheat - clean - cream - creature - deal - dream - each - easy - eat - feature - heal - heat - increase - jeans - lead *(verb)* - leader - leaf - lean - leave - meal - mean - meat - pea - peach - peak - please - reach - read - repeat - reason - reveal - scream - sea - seal - seat - steal - steam - stream - teach - team - treat - weak - weasel

* Homophones: bean - been; beat - beet; feat - feet; heal - heel; jeans - genes; leak - leek; meat - meet; pea - pee - P; peace - piece; read - reed; sea - see - C; steal - steel; tea - tee - T; team - teem; weak - week;

## /e/

* as **/e/**: ahead - already - bread - breakfast - breast - breath - cleanse - dead - deaf - dealt - death - dread - dreadful - feather - head - header - health - heather - heavy - instead - jealous - lead *(metal)* - leapt - leather - meadow - meant - measure - pheasant - pleasant - pleasure - read *(past tense and past participle)* - ready - spread - steady - sweat - thread - threat - threaten - treachery - tread - treadmill - treasure - wealth - weapon - weather

* Homophones: bred - bread; led - lead; lent - leant; red - read; whether - weather
* Minimal pairs (only the last consonant is different): dead - debt; head - hell; sweat - swell; tread - trek;
* These words don't rhyme: /iː/ vs /e/: bead - dread; beans - cleanse; beaten - threaten; beneath - breath; leader - header; leaf - deaf; least - breast; treat - threat;

## /eɪ/

* as **/eɪ/**: break - great - steak

Ronald Reagan (American president) - W B Yeats (Irish writer)
* Homophones: brake - break; grate - great; stake - steak

## Others

* /ə/: ocean
* /ɔː/: Sean /ʃɔːn/
* /eə/: yeah
* /ɪ/: mileage
* "eau" as /juː/: beauty - beautiful

Silent e + "a" as /ə/: enforceable - knowledgeable - noticeable

Two syllables

* /iːeɪ/: create - creation
* /iːæ/: preamble - react - reaction - Seattle
* /iːɪ/: lineage
* /iːə/: area, Caribbean
* "crea" as /kərɪ/: acreage

## "ear"

### /ɪə/

* as **/ɪə/**: appear - beard - clear - dear - ear - earring - fear - gear /gɪər/ - hear - near - rear - tear *(teardrop)* - year

* Homophones: dear - deer; hear - here

### /ɜː/

* as **/ɜː/**: early - earn - earth - heard - hearse - learn - pearl - rehearsal - rehearse - search;

* Homophones: urn - earn; herd - heard;

### /eə/

* as **/eə/**: bear - pear - swear - tear *(verb)* - wear

* Homophones: bare - bear; pair - pear; where - wear;

### Spelling anomalies

* as **/ɑː/**: heart - hearth *(the floor at the bottom of a fireplace)*

## Heteronyms

* lead /liːd/ *(v. guide)* - /led/ *(n. metal)*
* read /riːd/ *(present)* - /red/ *(past)*
* tear /teər/ *(v. damage)* /tɪər/ *(n. liquid)*

## /iː/ and /e/

Several words that are pronounced with /iː/ have a related word with /e/.

* clean - cleanse; heal - health; please - pleasure; zeal - zealous;

### Irregular verbs

Some irregular verbs and pronounced /iː/ become /e/ in the past tense. Many of them are spelt "ea".

* deal - dealt; dream - dreamed *or* dreamt; eat - ate /et,*BrE* eɪt*AmE*/; lead - led; lean - leaned *or* leant; leap - leaped *or* leapt; mean - meant; read - read;

## Three columns

A spelling and decoding exercise is to arrange "ea" and /e/ words in three columns as in the following example.

 smell | zealous | zeal

## References

1. ↑ The measured mom, Spelling ea words (a free lesson with printables!)