Double Consonants Educational Resources

For students still learning spelling, a word with a double consonant is like low-hanging fruit. Often doubling as familiar sight words, these words provide an easy entry into understanding how two like consonants can come together inside of a word. Education.com’s worksheets, games, and activities will expose your child to words ranging from button to tunnel, and help them have a good time while they are at it.

The English language comes with many rules that tell us how certain letter clusters are supposed to be read. Understanding these rules helps students gain phonological awareness. While many of these rules seem to be broken just as often as they hold true, rules that govern the sounds surrounding double consonants hold true most of the time.
A double consonant is when a consonant occurs twice in a row. When this happens and it is followed by a vowel, the vowel sound will be short. For example:

• Dinner
• Happen
• Summer
• item

Some words that do not have the double consonant will be have a second consonant added when a suffix is added to the end of the word. Single syllable words that end in a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern will have the final consonant doubled when either the -ed or -ing suffix is added:

• Pop
• Hit
• Stop

The consonants are also doubled when a comparative or superlative suffix (-er or -est) is sometimes added to a word ending in the CVC pattern:

• Big- bigger, biggest
• Thin- thinner, thinnest

When a word has two or more syllables, whether or not you double the end consonant becomes about pronunciation. If the emphasis is on the first syllable the final consonant is not doubled:

• Resist- resisted, resisting
• Visit- visited, visiting

When the emphasis is on the second syllable, the final consonant will be doubled:

• Begin- beginning
• Permit- permitting

Working with your students using the resources provided above by Education.com may help them gain understanding of the rules associated with using double consonants and the sounds they make.