Silent Letters: We Can't Be Silent About Them!

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

In this lesson, you will learn how to spell with silent letters when writing words.

This will help your spelling and reading!

• What are some of the things you thought of that are silent or quiet?

Here are some things I thought of:

• Did you know some letters of the alphabet can also be silent?

These are letters that you see, but you do not say!

They are written, but they are not pronounced.

For example, in the word knee, you see the letter k, but you do not say it.

Say it: knee

Do you hear the k sound?

Nope! That sneaky k is silent.

Here are some more words with silent letters:

knife
You see the k, but you say nife.

comb
You see the b, but you say come.

thumb
You see the b, but you say thum.

ghost
You see the h, but you say gost.

Silent letters can be tricky, but they often show up in patterns.

Sometimes k is silent before n, like in knee and knock.

Sometimes b is silent after m, like in comb and climb.

When you read a word, look carefully at every letter. Some letters are there to help you spell the word, even if they stay quiet!

Here are some letters that can be silent:

Here are some words with silent letters:

Look at the words above again.

No, silent letters do not always go at the beginning of words.

A silent letter can be at the beginning.

Look at knock.
You see the k, but you do not say it.

A silent letter can be in the middle.

Look at school.
You see the h, but you do not say it.

A silent letter can be at the end.

Look at comb.
You see the b, but you do not say it.

Try reading these words out loud:

climb
match
witch
ghost
school
knock
night

Now look at each word again.

Which letter do you see but not hear?

That quiet letter is the silent letter!

Keep going in the Got It? section!