Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's spelling lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss.

I love spellings, and I'm really looking forward to teaching you today.

In today's lesson, you'll need to bring with you your looking eyes, your listening ears, and your thinking brains.

As well as that, something to write with and someone to talk to would be excellent as well.

Let's get on with our spelling today then.

So in today's lesson, we're gonna be looking at silent letters, and in particular, the 'gn' spelling.

The outcome will be, I can spell words with 'gn' representing the 'n' phoneme or the 'n' sound.

Here are the key words for today's lesson.

Please keep an eye and an ear out for these 'cause they're really important.

So my turn, your turn now.

You need to hear you saying these back to me.

Grapheme.

Fantastic.

Phoneme.

Word families.

Etymology.

Silent letters.

Brilliant.

Let's have a little discussion about these then.

Graphemes are the written representations of spellings.

Okay? Basically spellings.

They can be single letter or they can be more than a single letter.

Phonemes are the smallest units of sounds that we can break words up into.

So today, we're looking at that 'n' phoneme, that 'n' sound.

Word families are a group of words common in feature, pattern, or meaning.

For instance, the word know is part of the word family with words like unknown, knowledge, knowing, and so on and so forth.

They all contain that root word, know.

Etymology is the study of words, what their meaning and how, the way they're formed, the way they look, and also their meaning has changed over time.

And finally, silent letters are letters of in words that are not pronounced, okay? But their spelling is there, their grapheme is there, but you don't hear them.

There's no phoneme for them.

That's why they're called silent letters.

Silent as in unheard, not heard.

Fantastic.

Please keep an ear out for these words.

And I learned, they're gonna be very important.

So onto the outline for today's lesson.

We are looking at silent letters, the 'gn' spelling.

We're gonna begin by looking at some common exception words.

Then we're gonna concentrate on that 'gn' spelling.

And then finally, we're gonna have a chance to apply some of the spellings that we are looking at today in a sentence.

So onto the first learning cycle, spelling some common exception words.

Common exception words are those words that don't adhere to or follow our regular phonics patterns, which makes them a little bit trickier to either read or spell.

So let's have a read of the following word.

My turn, your turn.

School.

School.

Strange spelling for this word, isn't it? I'd like you to have a look at this word for me.

What do you notice about this spelling? What makes it particularly tricky or difficult? Pause the video, have a think.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

So for me, it's this 'ch'.

The 'ch' here is making a hard sound, isn't it? Okay.

Whereas you might expect it to make a 'ch' sound.

So rather than it being school, it's school.

It's making 'k' sound, isn't it? Okay, and then our double O is making an ooh sort of sound there as well, so school.

So bit of a strange one there, 'ch' making a 'k' sound.

So listen to the word I say, and I want you to then point to the correct spelling for me.

The word is school.

Which is the correct spelling for the word school? Pause the video and point to it now.

Brilliant.

Absolutely.

It's this one here.

It's a common exception word, okay.

The others might make sense phonetically, but remember, it's got that strange 'ch' in it making that 'k' sound.

So because this is a common exception word and there's one we can't apply phonics to, and we can't generate rules for, really, we then need to sort of just learn it off by heart, by sight.

So we're gonna embed it into our long-term memory.

And a great strategy for doing this is a look, cover, write, check, strategy.

Love this strategy.

Allows you to be independent and it's repetitive.

This works by looking at the word.

So I look here at the word, school.

I then cover it up.

It's gone.

I've had to memorise it.

I then write it in my niece's handwriting.

Brilliant.

And then I check back, I got this right.

But just 'cause I got it right doesn't mean I'm gonna do it once.

I'm gonna repeat this till it's really embedded in my memory.

So I'll let you to pause the video now and I like you to write out your need to handwriting this word school again and again using this strategy.

Pause the video and have a go at using the strategy now.

Fantastic.

So hopefully you've got something that looks a bit like this.

The word school, visit out a number of times.

Did you manage to spell it correctly? Check your spelling now and make any corrections if you need to pause video.

Brilliant.

Onto the next learning cycle.

Here we're gonna be looking at the 'gn' spelling.

So the 'gn' spelling, there are several ways that 'n' sound can be representing that 'nn' sound, let's have a look and a read of these word, first of all.

My turn your turn.

Noun.

I can hear that sound.

That 'n' sound twice in that word.

Interest, runner, knead, knock, gnome, gnaw.

If you gnaw something it means you chew it.

I remember that knead that spelling with the silent 'K' at the beginning.

Okay? Means to knead dough, okay? To work it with your hands like that, to roll it like that.

So I heard a number of 'n' sounds there.

Okay? A number of 'nn' sounds and they represented differently.

Let's have a look and see how they're represented.

I've seen it with an an N, a double N, a KN, and now a GN.

So if we look here in the word interest, we have that single N, very common spelling for that 'nn' sound.

Then we have our double N, then we have our silent K in that KN digraph.

And now this lesson, we are going to be looking at that 'n' sound, but with a silent G in the word.

So I don't say gnaw, okay? Like the garden gnome.

Okay? The small little figure.

And I don't say gnaw, okay? I say know and gnome.

So a representation of the 'n' sound includes 'gn' and the 'gn' spelling can be known as having a silent letter because you cannot hear the G.

It's unheard when we pronounce the words with 'g'.

So let's have a read of these words and see which of these words use the 'gn'.

Okay? This grapheme here, this digraph 'gn' to represent the 'n' sound.

So let's read the words first.

My turn, your turn.

Signal.

Gnat.

Game.

Running.

Pause the video.

There's one word there that uses the 'gn' to represent just that 'n' phoneme.

Pause the video and decide which it is.

Fantastic.

Absolutely it is gnat here.

And let's go through and think about the others.

I can see 'gn' in signal, but there's an issue here, isn't there? It's not making signal.

Okay, I can hear the 'g' pronounced the signal.

Okay.

The guard gave a signal.

In the word gnat, and a gnat by the way, is a bit like a small fly that buzzes around and might bite you a little bit like a mosquito.

I don't hear the 'g', I don't say gnat, I just say gnat, game I just hear the 'g' there.

There's no sound letter and running uses both a double N and then and and 'g' at the end making 'n' sound again.

I can hear the G.

So gnat was our word there that had our silent G.

So let's have a go at sound buttoning, and sound buttoning is really useful 'cause it allows us to concentrate on where the particular spelling of the sound we're looking at is coming in a word.

So I'll have a go here first, 'nn', 'aa' 'll', gnarl.

Okay.

And something that's gnarl is knobbly and rough and twisted, 'nn' 'aa' 't', gnat.

Remember that little mosquito like fly creature.

So you can see here our 'gn' behaves like a digraph.

Okay? Two letters to represent that or one sound there, that 'n' sound.

Here are some other words.

I'd like you to have a go at sound buttoning and saying them now pause the video and do this.

Excellent work everyone.

Saw some brilliant pointing of fingers and dashes and dots.

And I also saw some sort of writing it down.

Excellent, 'nn' 'aa', 'shh', gnash.

And if you gnash your teeth together, it means you put them together like this.

Perhaps in pain or in anger, 'nn' 'oo', gnaw.

And again, if you gnaw something, you chew on it.

The dog gnawed on the bone.

'K', 'aa' 'mm' 'pp' 'eh' 'nn', campaign.

Long word there.

Let's think about this campaign, campaign.

And campaign can mean a couple of things.

It could be a politician who's going on a campaign.

So travelling up and down the countries try and get votes.

It could also be a series of military operations.

Campaigns generally are done to try and achieve a goal.

Brilliant.

So hopefully you've seen our 'gn' of our silent G in a number of places in the words here.

So I'd like you to have a look at these words.

My turn your turn.

And then I want you to be thinking about what do you notice about these spellings? What do you notice about the silent G? So my turn your turn, gnat.

Remember that gnat is that small fly like insect and behave like mosquito.

Gnaw, which means to chew, gnash, which means to fit your teeth together, maybe in pain or in anger, sign.

Okay? Like you might sign something, design and assign.

So if you assign something, it means you give someone a role or give someone a job.

Okay? I assigned a book corner monitor.

I gave someone that role.

So I'm going to pause video now and look at these 'gn' spellings.

Where are they coming in words? Pause the video and have a think.

Brilliant, some amazing word consciousness.

And thinking about spellings going on there.

Lovely conversations.

So I've noticed that the 'gn' spelling of that silent G is usually found at the beginning of a word or at the end of a word.

So in gnat, gnaw, and gnash, it's at the beginning.

And then in sign, design, assign, okay? We have that 'N' sound, but that 'gn'.

Okay, so let's say sigon or dzigan or asigon.

Let's make that long 'I' sound and then the 'gn' representing that 'n'.

So coming at the end.

So at the beginning or the end.

Remember not all words that contain the 'gn' spelling use it to form a digraph, for instance in the word signal.

Okay? The 'gn' come next to each other in this word, but they're not digraph, they're not making one sound here.

It's a 's' 'i' 'g' 'n' 'a' 'l', signal.

So the G and N are pronounced separately, which can make it a little bit confusing 'cause look in the words sign, they are acting as a digraph.

So be careful for that one.

So have a look at these spellings for me.

My turn your turn, campaign, design, foreign, so someone from another place or another country, sign, reigned, okay? And that's if you reigned something in, so the reigns on a horse, I reigned the horse in means you gain control of it using the reigns, assigned, so again, giving someone a job or a position.

Have a look here in these words, they all contain this 'gn', don't they? All either at the end or the end of the root word.

It is thought that the 'kn' and the 'gn', remember both of these can make an 'nn' sound that N sound are etymologically, remember? Which means the history of the, the language, the history of the words, where they've come from rooted, they come from the Germanic past of English.

So English is this incredible combination of a variety of languages from our past.

And it's thought that the 'k' and the 'gn' spellings in particular come from the Germanic past.

Have a look here at the words rained and assigned.

Our 'gn' is still at the end here of that root word.

And we've added that 'ed' suffix onto the end.

So think about the 'gn' spelling in which two places is the 'gn' spelling usually found in a word.

Pause the video, select the two places.

It's usually found A, the beginning, B, the middle C, the end, or D, anywhere in the word.

Pause it.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

So absolutely that's most commonly found at the beginning and also at the end.

Okay? And here are some words that show that gnaw, gnat and sign.

Excellent.

So we're now gonna have a go at spelling some words that contain some of our silent letters.

Really take our time with this.

So remember to stretch the words, okay? Sound them out, count those sounds.

Also write it and look and check and think.

Does it look right? Remember to also apply the spelling rules we've looked at today.

So here are our words.

Number one, gnarled, remember gnarled means rough and novelly.

Okay? And twisted that the gnarled oak tree stood in the field.

So here we, we can see the trees.

They're a rough, okay? And novelly and hard-edged, so gnarled.

Brilliant number two design.

And you can see here a design for a car.

Okay? Design.

And finally number three, gnash, gnash, the hungry wolf gnashed his teeth together.

Gnash.

Okay, so I'm gonna say those words one more time and you're gonna pause the video and retake your time, okay? To stretch those words.

Gnarled, 'nn' 'aa' 'oo' 'dd', gnarled.

So 'gnarled' number two, design, and number three, gnash.

Brilliant.

Pause the video and write those words now.

Fantastic work everybody.

So let's go through number one.

Let's see how you've done.

It was gnarled, wasn't it? Let's have a look, gnawled.

Doesn't seem right to me the first one, that's making AW, making 'oo' sound, doesn't it? Gnarld, now that looks like the root word gnarld, is in there.

It's in both the second and the third one, with our silent G at the beginning, gnawled, we know like, so I've become at the beginning or at the end, but I'm making it gnarled aren't I? 'ed' okay? So it is gonna be this one here.

Middle one doesn't look right, I've got my suffix, 'ed' suffix on the end, gnarled, okay.

Number two, design.

I've seen everything like this design.

Disign and design.

Well we've been looking today at that 'n' spelt with 'gn' haven't we? But that silent G.

So I don't think the last one's going to be quite right.

Design, yeah, I mean it is a strange word.

It sounds like I said design.

And it is a tricky one because I don't necessarily go desine, but it's actually this spelling here.

So there's a bit of a naughtiness to it there in that second letter because it sounds like it might be a design, but it's actually an E there and yeah, absolutely.

It's got that word sign in it.

Okay.

S-I-G-N, okay? With that silent G.

And finally we had gnash.

Okay, the wolf gnashed its teeth 'n' 'ash' makes phonetic sense, the first one, 'gn' 'ash' makes sense, 'gn' 'ash' 'e', not quite sure why it add an E onto the end there.

So I don't think it to be my last one, it's between these two.

Remember we've been looking today at that silent G to make that digraph, okay? To come to make that N sound coming at the start of word or the end of word.

So it's this spelling here, gnash, fantastic.

See how you did celebrate your learning.

Celebrate any mistakes, make any corrections now.

Pause the video.

Off you go.

Onto our final cycle then we're gonna have the chance to apply some spellings within a sentence.

We are going to write a sentence containing some of our focus spellings and common exception words when we write the whole sentence.

We need to do several things at once.

We need to remember the whole sentence.

We need to form letters correctly.

We need to sound out each word.

We need to look out for common exception words.

And we need to remember sentence punctuation, capital letters, and full stops.

So let's really take our time with this.

So I'd like you to just listen to me say the sentence, first of all, just listening using these amazing ears you have using your hearing.

So just listen to me say the sentence first.

The huge gnat was fed up, so he gnawed on the school sign.

The huge gnat was fed up, so he gnawed on the school sign.

It's a bit of a silly sentence.

Doesn't really make sense.

Remember a gnat is a small fly like creature, but like a mosquito that might bite you.

Okay? So when we're writing our sentence, so when we're listen to it as well, we need to be making sure we sound out each of those words.

Okay? Even when we're saying it, we look out those common exception words as well.

So if you think carefully about these ones that don't follow usual phonics patterns, and then we also check our sentence punctuation cast a letter full stock.

Brilliant.

So we're gonna use some strategies now to help us remember the sentence.

I'll just say the sentence one more time.

The huge gnat was fed up so gnawed on the school sign.

Okay, so the first one, we're gonna clap it out.

The huge gnat was fed up, so he gnawed on the school sign, you have a go clapping out the sentence now.

Pause the video.

Fantastic.

Next one, whispering it.

The huge gnat was fed up, so he gnawed on the school sign.

Pause the video and have a whisper of it.

Now to yourself or to someone near, off you go.

Brilliant.

Barely hear, that is such whispering and counting the words on our fingers then.

The huge gnat was fed up, so he gnawed on the school sign.

One more time.

The huge gnat was fed up, so gnawed on the school sign.

I mean that 13.

You pause the video and count each of those words on your fingers now.

Off you go.

Exceptional.

So we are now going to have a go writing this sentence.

Remember to sound out each word.

Look out for this next section words, don't forget your punctuation.

Capital letters and full stops.

I'll say it one more time.

The huge gnat was fed up, so gnawed on the school sign.

Pause the video and write that sentence now.

Brilliant.

So we're now gonna go through this sentence, okay? And I'd like to check your work as we go along and make any corrections as we go along, okay? And really consider any learning you're doing from this.

Remember, mistakes are golden, particularly in spelling.

It's really how we can make any corrections and learn from them.

So take your time.

The capital letter, obviously huge, gnat, oh that's got our silent G at the beginning, hasn't it? 'gn' 'nat'.

Brilliant.

Was fed up.

Okay, he's a bit annoyed.

Well he's fed up.

So he gnawed, ooh, that's that root word gnawed there.

And that's that silent G, gnawed which means the chew on.

Gnawed, 'ed' at the end there, gnawed on the school.

Ah, that was our common exception of wasn't it? Okay, it's not sichul it's school, school and sign.

Yeah, remember the 'gn', that sign G spending can come at the beginning or at the end.

So S-I-G-N sign, and remember, of course, a full stop.

Incredible work, everybody.

What did you learn? You made any mistakes you need to make any corrections.

Share your wonderful learning with those around you and make any corrections now.

Pause the video.

Off you go.

Really well done everybody.

Very, very proud of you all.

So we've been looking at silent letters.

The 'gn' is a less common representation of the 'n' sound, that 'nn' sound, remember the G in this is silent.

So that's why we refer to it as a silent letter.

We don't hear it when we say that 'n' sound.

The 'gn' is usually found at the beginning or the end of a word.

And here are three words to exemplify that gnat, gnaw and sign.

Excellent work today everyone.

Keep up the amazing spelling and I'll see you soon.