QU, NG, NK and The FLOSS Rule — Double Letters Explained! The Phonics Lab

Level 2 · Article 8 of 75

QU, NG, NK and The FLOSS Rule! 💍

The married couple, the nasal twins and the double letter rule — all in one article!

The Secret 🔑

🤫
The Rule
Some letter pairs always stay together — QU never splits up, NG and NK make nasal sounds, and the FLOSS Rule says double F, L, S or Z after a short vowel in a one-syllable word!

Meet the special pairs! 🎨

👆 Tap any card to hear the sound!
QU /kw/
queen
always together!
NG /ng/
ring
end of words
NK /nk/
sink
end of words

QU — the married couple! 💍

Q and U are ALWAYS together — Q never appears without U!
Q
💍
U
→
QU!
Together QU says /kw/ — like in queen, quick, quiz, quilt! Tap the QU box to hear it!

The FLOSS Rule 🦷

After a short vowel in a one-syllable word —
double the F, L, S or Z at the end!
F
L
O
S
S
👆 Tap any word to hear it!
fluff
staff
bell
hill
miss
boss
buzz
fizz

NG and NK word families! 🎨

👆 Tap any word to hear it!
ring
on your finger!
sink
wash your hands!
sing
la la la!
pink
a lovely colour!
long
not short!
tank
full of water!
🎯
The Challenge — Read this silly sentence!
"The queen sang a long song and the bell went buzz fizz ping!"
A very musical queen sang a long song — and the bell got so excited it made three sounds at once: buzz, fizz and ping! Can you spot the QU, NG, NK and FLOSS words? 😄

⚠️ Rule Breaker Watch!

⚠️ FLOSS has exceptions!
Some short common words break the FLOSS Rule — like if, of, us, yes, his, bus, gas. These are so common they just get memorised as sight words. The FLOSS Rule works for the vast majority of words — just watch out for these small exceptions! 💪
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