-ck and -ke endings

Which one is correct?
He was quacking with fear.
He was quaking with fear.

In this lesson we're looking at the difference between the -ck and -ke endings, and how it can help not only your spelling but your reading too.
Mick — Mike
Jack — Jake
luck — Luke
lick — like
back — bake
cock — coke
whack — wake
block — bloke

Notice they both have one vowel before the -ck and -ke.

But the -ke ending has a long vowel sound because of the magic 'e' silent 'e' at the end.
We drop the 'e' with -ing and still maintain the long sound: liking, baking, making

The -ck ending indicates a short vowel sound: Mick, lick, whack. It can be found in the middle of words: jacket, whacking, pocket, blockage, crackers, pucker.

In  quack and quake you can see two vowels together. In English words, Q always comes with U so classed as one consonant -qu-

Let's look at those sentences from the beginning again: He was quacking was fear. He was quaking with fear.  Remember -ck indicates a short vowel sound. Quacking with fear? Quack! Quack!

It should be "quaking with fear". We have quake and if we drop the 'e' and add -ing, it maintains the long vowel sound - quaking.

Check these sentences out.

Stop licking the ice-cream!
Stop liking ice-cream!

Mike's lovely.
Mick's lovely.

I was baking a cake for Luke. - long sounds
I was backing the car up and whacked a concrete block. - short sounds

So knowing all this not only helps your spelling but reading too.

If you'd like to understand more about spelling rules then check out my Spelling Rules Workbook -a step-by-step guide to the rules of spelling