Silent Letters

Read and spell knight, wrist, gnaw, thumb, listen, island: letters you see but don't say, and the patterns they follow (kn-, wr-, gn-, -mb, -stle).

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 1

Welcome to Word Explorer Camp! Explorers look closely at the trail, and readers look closely at words. Some words have letters you see but don't say.
These are silent letters. In knee, you don't hear the k. In wrist, you don't hear the w. In thumb, you don't hear the b.
Silent letters often come in patterns: k n at the start, w r at the start, g n, m b at the end, and s t l e or s t e n, like castle and listen.
Long ago, people said these letters! Over hundreds of years the sounds faded, but the spellings stayed.
Silent letters can change meaning, too. Knot and not sound the same. Knight and night sound the same. Read the whole sentence to know which one fits.
Your turn! Sort these words by their silent letter.

Georgia's K-12 English Language Arts Standards:

4.F.P.4.a — Decode and encode words with graphemes that represent multiple letter-sound correspondences.