The influence of the cladding and substrate materials on graphene transverse electric (TE) mode surface plasmonic properties have been theoretically investigated based on the optical dispersion equation in the two-layer/three-layer dielectric system. It is found that the TE mode is highly sensitive to the dielectric contrast between the cladding and the substrate materials on both sides of graphene in the near-infrared regime. When the dielectric contrast between the cladding and the substrate is tiny, the TE mode surface plasmons can be transmitted. As the dielectric contrast increases, the TE mode dispersion curve behaves differently. The effective refractive index of the TE mode increases obviously and the propagation loss decreases continuously. For the three-layer parallel-plated waveguide structure with graphene embedded between two dielectric medium layers, the numerical results show that the control for the TE mode is significant especially when the dielectric constants for the propagation layer and the substrate layer is close to each other. It originates from the coupling between the electromagnetic wave and graphene leading to the surface plasmons between them. The results provide a theoretical support for the design of graphene surface plasmons based optoelectronic waveguides, such as modulators, detectors, and filters.