A secоnd-grаde teаcher frequently cоnducts spelling inquiry wоrkshops with students to deepen their understаnding of various orthographic guidelines. For example, in one inquiry, the teacher gives students a set of words that follow the silent-e syllable pattern and that include the inflectional ending -ing, -ed, or -s. Students work with a classmate to sort the base words according to whether the word drops the silent e when adding the inflection. After sorting the words, the students must analyze each list to generate a rule describing the conditions that require and e-drop. The following is a completed chart by one pair of students. What is the rule for dropping silent e? Inflected words WITH an e-drop Inflected words WITHOUT an e-drop shaking staring baking shakes stares bakes shared biked hoped shares bikes hopes smiling joked living smiles jokes lives Some pairs of students, such as the pair whose work is shown, correctly sort the words, but the still cannot generate an orthographic rule for when to drop the silent e. The teacher could best support these students by prompting them to: