the sound is 'ee'."' Teaching English Spelling (Cambridge University Press, 2000) provides a system of sound–spelling correspondences aimed at correcting common spelling errors among native and ESL students. The chapter "The sound 'e' (/iː/)" has sections on spellings "ee", "ea", "-y" and "ie and ei", the last of which uses "I before E except after C" and lists five "common exceptions" (caffeine, codeine, protein, seize, weird). The 2009 edition of Support for Spelling, by the English Department for Education, suggests an "Extension activity" for Year Five (10-year-olds): Children investigate the rule i before e except after c. Does this always apply? What sound does ie make in these words? In the Appendix, after a list of nine "useful spelling guidelines", there is a note: The i before e except after c rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear /ee/ sound and unless this is known, words such as sufficient, veil and their look like exceptions. There are so few words where the ei spelling for the /ee/ sound follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words: receive, conceive, deceive (+ the related words receipt, conceit, deceit), perceive and ceiling. There were widespread media reports of this recommendation, which generated some controversy. The Oxford Dictionaries website of Oxford University Press states "The rule only applies when the sound represented is ‘ee’, though. It doesn't apply to words like science or efficient, in which the –ie- combination does follow the letter c but isn't pronounced ‘ee’." David Crystal discusses the rule in his 2012 history of English spelling. He first restricts it to the vowel, then accounts for several classes of exception. He states that, while the exceptions are fewer and rarer than the words that follow the rule, there are too many to learn by heart; the factors are "too great to reduce to a simple rule", but "a basic knowledge of grammar and word-history" can handle them. Educationalist Greg Brooks says the long-e qualification "is hardly ever mentioned, perhaps because it is difficult to explain to children"; the except-after-C part "works very poorly"; and the mnemonic "should be consigned to oblivion". Exceptions The following sections list exceptions to the basic form; many are not exceptions to the augmented forms. Words that break both the "I before E" part and the "except after