Word family
The -ate word family
The answer
The -ate word family is every one-syllable word that ends in the rime ate, said /ayt/. Our lexicon has 16 public words in it: 8 with one consonant first, 7 with a blend and 1 with no sound before the rime.
What is in this family?
The ate family is long a with silent e: a, then t, then an e that makes the a say its name. It rhymes with words spelled ait and eight (wait, weight), which our rhyme table lists. The chunk is useful well beyond one-syllable words, because so many longer words end in it: create, debate, celebrate. Learning the family as a chunk pays off later.
The words, sorted by what comes before the rime
One consonant before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| date | d + ate | Lesson 54 |
| fate | f + ate | Lesson 54 |
| hate | h + ate | Lesson 54 |
| late | l + ate | Lesson 54 |
| rate | r + ate | Lesson 54 |
| gate | g + ate | Lesson 54 |
| mate | m + ate | Lesson 54 |
| pate | p + ate | Lesson 54 |
A blend before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| state | st + ate | Lesson 54 |
| plate | pl + ate | Lesson 54 |
| crate | cr + ate | Lesson 54 |
| grate | gr + ate | Lesson 54 |
| skate | sk + ate | Lesson 54 |
| slate | sl + ate | Lesson 54 |
| spate | sp + ate | Lesson 54 |
No sound before the rime
| Word | Onset + rime | Readable after |
|---|---|---|
| ate | (none) + ate | Lesson 54 |
Word ladder: change one sound at a time
Every step is a real word from the list, and each one changes exactly one sound. Say the change aloud before the student writes the new word.
| Step | Word | The change |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ate | start here |
| 2 | date | add /d/ |
| 3 | fate | change /d/ to /f/ |
| 4 | hate | change /f/ to /hh/ |
| 5 | late | change /hh/ to /l/ |
| 6 | rate | change /l/ to /r/ |
| 7 | gate | change /r/ to /g/ |
| 8 | mate | change /g/ to /m/ |
| 9 | pate | change /m/ to /p/ |
| 10 | plate | add /l/ |
Rhymes spelled another way
These words rhyme with the family but spell the rime differently, so they belong to other families. Expect students to mix them up when spelling.
| Spelling | Words |
|---|---|
| -ait | wait, bait, gait, trait, strait |
| -eight | eight, weight, freight |
| -eat | great |
| -aight | straight |
How do you teach it?
Teach ate after students know silent e. Contrast mat and mate, rat and rate, fat and fate, so students hear what the e does. Then build the blends: plate, skate, slate, state, crate, grate.
"Read 'mat'. Now I add an e: m-a-t-e. The e jumps back over the t and makes the a say its name: mate. Again: rat, rate. Fat, fate."
What is the common error, and the fix?
Students read "late" as "lat" because they miss the e, or spell "wait" as "wate". The fix for reading is to scan to the end before saying the vowel. For spelling, learn that wait and weight belong to other spellings of the same rhyme.
Sort it: a hands-on activity
Pair cards: mat and mate, rat and rate, fat and fate, slat and slate. Students read both cards of each pair and say what the e changed. Then they sort a mixed pile into short a and long a.
How this list was built
Every word comes from our lexicon of about 19,000 common words, each checked against a pronouncing dictionary and split into spelling units. Words a student meets in our assessments and progress-monitoring probes are left out, so practicing a list never rehearses a test. A family is every one-syllable base word (no suffix, not a compound) whose rime, the vowel unit and every unit after it, has the same spelling and the same sounds, so bead and bread are in different families. Ladders use only words from the list, and each step changes exactly one sound.
"Readable after" is the first lesson in the lesson sequence at which our decodability engine finds every sound-spelling in the word taught; "not taught" means the word has a spelling the sequence does not cover, so it is read with help. You can check your own lists and passages with the free decodable text checker.
Questions people ask
How many words are in the -ate family?
Our lexicon has 16 one-syllable words ending in ate that a student can practice. Words used in our assessments are left out, so a few common words may be missing from the list.
Why do wait and weight rhyme with ate?
Long a has several spellings. Ate, ait and eight all spell the same rhyme, so a student has to learn which words use which spelling.
What is a word ladder?
A chain of real words where each step changes one sound: swap a sound, add one, or take one away. Students say the change before they write it, which trains them to hear every sound in the word.