Spelling

Words with Silent Letters and Strange Combinations of Letters

In English, more than half the letters of the alphabet can be silent letters. When a letter is silent, you
don’t hear it when you say the word, but you see it in the spelling.

1. Read aloud each word in the following list of words – every word has at least one silent
letter. Find the silent letters and circle them.

tonight knew wrote head science wrist island

autumn hour high guard whistle should knock
fridge walk where climb scissors psychology

2. Each pair of letters in bold type below is a strange combination which has its own particular
pronunciation in English. For example, “yacht” is pronounced “yot” and you don’t hear the
ch at all.

For each strange combination of two letters below, list at l;east three examples as you can
think of

a. ph (pronounced f, as in phonics)

b. gh (pronounced g as in gherkin)

c. gh (pronounced f as in tough)

d. gn (pronounced n as in sign)

e. kn (pronounced n as in knot)
 f. wr (pronounced r as in written)

g. mb (pronounced m as in lamb)

3. Silent e is probably the most commonly used silent letter in English. When the silent e comes
after a consonant, it often makes the vowel sound before the consonant a long sound. For
example, note instead of not.

The word square has 38 words with a silent e in them. Find them and colour them in. Circle the
silent e in every word.

w t k b i o m o d e s t

q r p o r c u p i n e o

t i l e d l q l o u t p

f p a s t o r a l s t c

s t s z w s t y l e a l

h s t a t e m e n t m o

a f i r e d z d r a e t

p a c e p c m e s s s h

e v i t i e i g h t t e

d u n e d b l a d e h s

a p e n c i l c a s e e
 l i i s a m e n r o s e

e c l e a r r a n g e r

4. See if you can find another 33 words. List them below.