SATS Revision
Silent Letters
"I hate spelling!"
"Why don't we spell like we speak?"
"Why are there so many letters we don't pronounce?"
knee, knock, half, calm, wrist, write, plumber, daughter, though,
island...
Silent letters are the letters in words that are not pronounced but make a
huge difference to the meaning and sometimes the pronunciation of the
whole word.
Most of these silent letters were pronounced for centuries then they
became silent but the spelling was already fixed with these spellings, and
now they show the history of the word.
The bad news is that more than 60% of English words have silent letters
in them which can cause all sorts of problems with spelling the word or
looking for it in a dictionary.
The good news is there are some rules about what letters are silent
before or after certain letters (but like all English spelling rules, there are
exceptions to the rule).
Silent letters aren't there to mess with your brain - honest. They're there
for various reasons and so identifying and understanding them will
definitely help your spelling, writing and confidence.
1. They help the reader to distinguish between homophones (homophones
have the same sound, but a different meaning and different spelling.
There are loads of these nightmare words in English) in/inn,
be/bee,to/too/two, know/no, whole/hole, knot/not,
2. A silent letter can help us work out the meaning of the word and it also
can change the pronunciation even though it's silent - sin/sign, rat/rate
3. Magic 'e' - if you add 'e' at the end of short vowel sound words it
elongates the sound - rid/ride, cop/cope, hat/hate, tap/tape, at/ate,
mat/mate.
4. Sometimes people might pronounce certain letters or they might not
depending on their accent, for example the t in 'often' can be pronounced
or not.
5. H is silent in a lot of accents. For me h is a difficult letter to pronounce
because I grew up dropping the ‘h’ and my muscle memory doesn't like it
at all! But the H is silent in some words from French - hour, honest,
honour, heir, herb (in American)
6. They show the origins and history (etymology) of a word.
One way to start to love spelling and improve it is to take an interest in
words, to discover the logic in the spelling system and to understand the
background and history of words, and this especially true for learning
silent letters.
HOMEWORK TASK: Do you know why there are silent letters in these
words?.
1. What's the origin of words with the silent k and g? Knife, knock, know,
knee, gnat, gnaw?
2. Why is there a silent b in plumber?
3. Why are there silent letters in doubt, debt, receipt?
4. What's the origin of the words with the silent 'gh' like daughter, night,
light, bright, dough, bough (branch of a tree) and why is 'gh' in cough
and enough pronounced with a 'f'?
5. Why is there a silent s in island?
Answers.
1. Knife, knock, know, gnat, gnaw are all Viking words which used to be
pronounced but we leave the letters in there to see the origin and history of the
word (in Sweden they still say the silent letter in knife kneefe)
2. Plumber is a Roman/Latin word from the Roman for lead pipe - plum bum.
3. 16th century academics messed around with our spelling by wanting to make
it more Latin and so added letters to words like debt, doubt and island.
4. That difficult -gh- letter pattern is from the Anglo- Saxons - daughter, night,
cough, dough, bright... the -gh- used to be -h- and pronounced like the Scottish
loch, a hard sound - until the French invaded and messed around with our
spelling and added the g. Then the -gh- became silent or pronounced with a 'f'
sound.
Fnd out more in my ebook - The Reasons Why English Spelling is so Weird and
Wonderful. Click here for more information about the ebook that'll change the
way you think about spelling and improve it.
There are some rules about what letters are silent before or after certain letters
( but like all English spelling rules there are exceptions to the rule).
silent 'k' before 'n'
knee
know
knuckle
knock
silent 'w' before 'r'
write
wrist
wrong
wrap
silent 'g' before 'n'
gnash
gnat
gnaw
gnarl
silent 'p' before 's'
psalm
psychic
psychology
psychiatry
Some words have silent letters in the middle or at the end.
'l' is often before 'k'
folk
‘b’ is often silent after ‘m’
plumber
‘n’ is often silent after ‘m’
column
‘t’ is often silent after ‘s’
listen