Silent Letters

Silent Letters

 Silent letters are letters that you can't hear when you say the word.  There are a lot of silent letter words in English. This is because although the pronunciation of some words has changed over the last two or three hundred years, the spelling has stayed the same.

There aren't many hard and fast rules; it's more a matter of learning which letters are silent in certain combination of letters.  here are some most common silent letters.

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, knife
Silent ‘w’ before ‘r’	wrist, write, wrong, wrap
Silent ‘g’ before ‘n’	gnash, gnat, gnaw, gnarl
Silent ‘p’ before ‘s’	psychology, psychiatry

Some words have silent letters in the middle or at the end.

Rule	Example
‘i’ is often before ‘k’	folk
‘b’ is often silent after/preceded by an ‘m’	plumber, climb, bomb, comb, crumb, lamb, limb, numb
‘b’ is often silent when followed by a ‘t’. But not always	debt,  doubt,  exception:   obtain,  obstruct
‘d’ is silent in the combination ‘dg’	badge,  edge, hedge, pledge
‘c’ is silent when preceded by a ‘s’ followed by an ‘e’ or an ‘i’ at the beginning of a word.	scenic, scenario, science
‘gh’ Is silent when followed by ‘t’	night,  bought
‘h’ is silent when preceded by a’p’	Shepherd
‘h’ is  silent when preceded by a ‘g’	ghost
‘h’  is silent when it comes between two vowels	vehicles
‘h’  is silent when followed by the letter ‘r’	rhythm
‘h’  is silent when preceded by the letters ‘ex’	exhausted it
‘n’ is often silent after ‘m’	Column. autumn
‘s’ is silent when followed by the letter ‘l’	Island, aisle
‘t’  is often silent after ‘s’	Listen,  Castle,  Christmas, listen,  whistle,   fasten
‘u’ is silent when preceded by the letter ‘g’ and followed by a vowel	guess, guitar
‘w’ is silent followed by the letter ‘r’ at the beginning of a word	write, wrong

 Exercise

 Use the rules to help add the missing silent letter to the following words.

clim__	climb
__nife	knife
lis__en	listen
crum_	crumb
stomac__	stomach
colum__	column
b__ild	build
bisc__it	biscuit
__nock	knock
Wres__le	wrestle
si__n	sign
cas__le	castle
r__inoceros	rhinoceros
sc__ool	school
dou__t	doubt
__nuckle	knuckle
w__isper	whisper
g__ost	ghost
ec__o	echo
hym__	hymn
g__itar	guitar
tom__	tomb
__ho	who
g__ess	ghees
__nee	knee
autum__	autumn
Anc__or	anchor
bom__	bomb
__not	knot
__riggle	wriggle
w__eel	wheel
s__ord	sword
desi__n	design
thum__	thumb
w__ite	write

In the word ‘salmon’ the letter ‘l’ is silent.  In each of the sentences given below, one word has been misspelt. Find the correct spelling.

1.  The train takes two ours to reach from Delhi to here.  Hours

2.   In autum, trees shed their leaves.  Autumn

3.   A deaf man can't hear; a dum Man can't speak. Dumb

4.   He is too young to rite,  he can only read. Write

5.   when I have a dout,  I use the dictionary. Doubt

6.   Inside the thermometer is a colum of mercury. Column

7.   Don't throw your toffee rapper on the floor. Wrapper

8.   Pam trees grow integers or near beaches. Palm

Here are some words that contain silent letters.

rhyme,   knives,  gnome, kneel, knead, wrap, honest, gnat, where, knock, know, write, wrong, knife, wrist, when

Write the words in the correct list below.  Add an extra word to each list at the bottom.

 silent h

1.  Rhyme

2.   When

3.    Where

4.   Honest

 My word-   hour

 silent w

1.  Wrap

2.   Wrong

3.   Write

4.   Wrist

 my word- Wrench

 silent g

1.  Gnome

2.  gnat

My word- Gnaw 

 silent k

1.  Knives

2.  Knife

3.  Knock

4.  Knead

5.  Kneel

 my word-  knapsack

 Read the given story.  The words underlined with a number next to them have silent letters.  Write the correct spelling at the end of the passage. 

Ben’s Eventful Day

 Then woke up stressed out his arm and nocked (1) his clock off the bedside table. He sighed loudly and leant of his bed  to pick up the clock.  As he fumbled for the clock, he hit his nuckle (2) on a toy which he had been playing with last night. Finally, he found the clock and placed it on top of his shelf.

Ben got up and tried to remember which day of the week it was.  He looked at the calendar and saw that it is wenesday(3). He looked at his blue scool (4) uniform and remember that his mother had asked him to put it away as he had to wear his white one.

“Are you dressed yet? wispered (5) his dad, as she came into the room. “Your breakfast is ready! 

Ben ran downstairs and sat at the kitchen table. “Good morning, Ben!” said his mum cheerly. She gave him a sadwich (6) and fruit juice. She then continued preparing the picnic bad that Ben and his dad were going to take with them on their day trip. 

“Where are we going?”  asked Ben in between mouthfuls of porridge.

“ It's a surprise!”  replied his mum.

“ What shall put in the picnic bag” she enquired. 

knocked (1)

knuckle (2) 

wednesday(3)

school (4)

whispered (5)

sandwich (6) 

Back to Table of Contents