Spelling – When to Double the Consonant Before ‘-ing’ Affix

present-participlesspellingverb-forms

My son is learning how to spell. He is doing a good job listening to sounds and working out spelling that way (which doesn't work for many words, but at least a lot of common ones), but although he's gotten the -ing chunk, he frequently misses doubling letters in these words.

Is there a guideline for when the end consonant is doubled? He's working on these sorts of words:

  • riding
  • sitting
  • skating
  • writing
  • getting

Best Answer

Are they still teaching the old 'long/short' vowels? If so, here's the rule:

If the syllable before the /-ing/ is pronounced with a 'long' vowel, leave the final consonant single (and delete any final silent /e/)
If it's pronounced with a 'short' vowel, double the final consonant.

It may help make this clearer if you explain that a vowel before a doubled consonant is (almost) always short. Then write the /-ing/ forms out 'wrong' and invite your son to pronounce them the way they look:
ride ridding
sit siting
skate skatting
write writting
get geting

As Renan points out, it gets more complicated when the final syllable of the base form is unstressed; but it looks like your son hasn't gotten that far yet.

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