/s/ spelled as ‘c’ ice

/s/ spelled as ‘c’ before e, i or y
ice, twice, cycle, city, dance, nice

/j/ spelled as ‘g’ magic

/j/ spelled as ‘g’ before e, i or y
magic, cage, giant, gym

Is the bird really in the cage or is it magic?

This fun optical trick is called a thaumatrope and is easy to make at home. Usually g makes a hard sound like in “go”, but when there’s an e, i and y directly following the g, it magically becomes soft, like j. It’s magic.

/j/ spelled as dge

use the longer spelling after a short vowel

age (long vowel, ge ending)

judge, edge, hodge podge (short vowel, dge ending)

/j/ can be spelled as j (jack), g (magic), dge (edge), or very rarely ‘d’ (soldier)