For spelling this week, I would like you to spend time reading and spelling words which have silent letters.
Remember – some letters in words do not make a sound, they are silent.
Silent letters are letters that you can’t hear when you say the word, but that are there when you write the word.
There are silent letters in some English words because over hundreds of years, we have changed how we pronounce these words, but have kept the spelling the same.
The spelling tells us how the word used to be pronounced.
For example: knight – in the past, people used to say the word with the k sounded out at the beginning! That would sound very strange to us today if we said ‘k-night’!
However, sometimes these rules act as a useful reminder when helping us to include the silent letter when spelling the words out!
Use this PowerPoint/PDF to remind you of the spelling rules silent letters follow…
You can also recap/learn more about Silent Letters at this BBC Bitesize link or using this BBC Teach Class Clip
Then practise the silent letter words below using your usual strategies!
Purple Group Spelling – Silent Letters
Blue Group Spelling – Silent Letters (w & b
A further challenge has been included below… Can you sort the words which has silent letters into the correct columns…
Silent-Letters-Sorting-Activity-Sheet
Miss Girvan.
