Author: British Council | Published on 1 November 2022
English has many words which contain silent letters.
Words like ‘might’, ‘half’, ‘write’ and ‘know’ have all got silent letters. Sometimes learners pronounce these letters when they shouldn’t. But they also need to know when words contain these letters so that they can spell the words correctly.
Listen
Listen to the pronunciation of these words:
[play audio]
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Silent ‘gh’: might sight night fight flight light tight Silent ‘l’: should would could half walk talk chalk Silent ‘w’: wrong write sword Silent ‘t’: listen whistle fasten mustn’t Silent ‘s’: island Silent ‘k’: know knee knew knife Silent ‘h’: when where why honest hour school Silent ‘b’: lamb comb climb Silent ‘u’: guest guide Silent ‘g’: sign foreign Silent ‘n’: autumn Silent ‘d’: Wednesday Silent ‘r’: father teacher sister far car |
Introduce
Think of 10 words which contain silent letters that your learners should know. These words should contain a range of silent letters.
Read the words aloud. Ask different learners to write them on the board. If they make mistakes, drill the words (say, point, repeat) and help them notice the sound and spelling.
With more advanced learners, you could draw a cloud on the board and fill it with words with different silent letters. Then ask groups or pairs to group the words.
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Silent l walk |
Silent w write |
Silent t listen |
Silent k know |
Silent h honest |
Silent b comb |
Practice
In pairs, learners choose and write six of the words in their notebook. They then create two or three sentences using their six words. E.g. We should go to school on Wednesday and listen to the teacher.
They should then swap sentences with another pair. Pairs identify and underline all the words with silent letters. Then they swap again and check they are correct.