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Hello everybody.

Welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mrs Richards and in today's lesson, we are learning about silent letters.

We're going to investigate the patterns and rules around silent letters.

And I love this lesson because learning about words is so interesting.

So let's get started.

In today's lesson, we'll start by exploring key vocabulary, then we will investigate and generate rules and set our spelling words.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil, and definitely your brain.

Pause the video and get any resources that you need.

Okay, let's have a look at our key vocabulary which we need to understand and be able to use in today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Silent letters.

Phonics.

Diagraph.

Let's see what these words mean.

Silent letters are letters within a word which cannot be predicted by its pronunciation.

These are letters which we don't hear when we're saying the word out loud.

Phonics is the teaching of letter sound correspondences, and we're going to have to use our phonics knowledge today to help us identify the silent letters.

And a diagraph is two letters representing one sound.

You'll see some of those today.

Okay, let's investigate and generate some rules.

What do these words have in common? I'll read them aloud to you, then you can pause the video and have a think.

Crumb.

Lamb.

Doubt.

What do these words have in common? Pause the video and tell the screen.

Okay.

Could you spot anything they had in common? Maybe something you could hear or something you could see in the spelling? Let's have a look.

Let's start by sounding out these words.

Crumb.

In this word, I can hear four sounds, but I can see five letters.

I wonder if there's a letter which we can't hear.

Did you spot it? Let's try the next one.

Lamb.

Three sounds this time, but four letters.

Which is the letter that you can't hear? Try this one.

Doubt.

Try again.

Doubt.

Here we have a diagraph, two letters working together to make one sound.

Ow is the letter O and U working together.

But which letter can't you hear within that word? Did you spot them? Yes! In crumb, we can't hear the B.

Crumb.

But I can't hear that B at the end.

Try this one.

Three sounds and four letters.

I can't hear the letter B.

Do this one.

Yes! I can't hear the letter B in this one either.

So our silent letter within this set of words is B.

Here it is.

Can you see which letters B might like to go next to in a word? What does it normally appear with? In crumb and lamb, can you see that the B is friends with the letter M? And this comes at the end of the word.

How about in doubt? What friend does the B have here? Yes, a T! And that B and T come at the end of the word.

Well done.

Other words which follow the same pattern are bomb, thumb, numb, plumber, and debt.

Debt is when I owe money, I have a debt.

Okay, let's look at another set of words.

What do these words have in common? I'll say them first.

Knock.

Knee.

Knight.

Pause the video and tell the screen what these words have in common.

Off you go.

Let's look at the first word, knock.

Sound it out.

Knock.

I can hear three sounds, but I can see five letters.

There's one diagraph, which I know about already.

The C and the K work together to make the CK sound.

But where's my silent letter? Yes, that K at the beginning.

Good spot! Try this one.

Knee, knee.

There's one diagraph, which I know already.

E is formed from the two letters E.

But where's my silent letter? Yes, that K at the beginning.

Good spot.

Try this last one.

Knight.

Here I've got three sounds, but I've got six letters.

Now I know about the trigraphed I already spelled by IGH.

But where's my silent letter? Yes, the K at the front! Here, knight means an armed soldier on horseback.

So our silent letter was K.

In fact, this comes from Old English where these words were spelled CN.

So knight was spelled C N I H T.

And it was said cniht, you could hear the sound.

The C sound was a guttural sound similar to the sound made by a C or a K.

As language has changed over time, we've lost that sound but not the spelling.

We can say that this spelling was fossilised.

It was kept, but the sound was lost.

So a good strategy for remembering how to spell these words is to put that sound back in.

When you're writing knight, like the soldier on horseback, say to yourself, cniht.

The same for knee.

Say to yourself, cnee.

And the same for knock.

Say to yourself, cnoc.

Okay.

What letter does the K often appear next to? Can you see? It likes the letter N.

So we often have a K and an N at the beginning of a word next to each other.

Let's have a look at another set of words.

On the board, there are two words.

Reign.

Gnarled.

I'll put these into a sentence for you.

The reign of the queen will shortly come to an end.

Gnarled.

The tree had gnarled branches, twisted branches.

What do these words have in common? Pause the video and tell the screen.

Okay, let's have a look.

Let's sound out that first word, reign.

Reign.

Now there's a diagraph there that I know already.

I know the A sound could be formed by the letters E and I working together.

What's my silent letter? Yes, my silent letter is the G.

I can't hear it within this word.

It's the same in gnarled.

I don't say g-narled, I say narled.

The G is a silent letter.

In the same way as before, this G was pronounced in Old English.

So a long time ago, we would have said ray-gn and g-narled, but we've lost that sound and kept the spelling.

Here, what letter does the silent G like? What does it often appear next to? Can you see? It often appears with the letter N and sometimes you'll see it at the end of the word, as in reign, and sometimes at the beginning of the word, as in gnarled.

Okay.

Last set of words.

Let's have a look.

What do these have in common? Wrapper.

Like the wrapper on a sweet.

Write.

Wrong.

Pause the video and tell the screen what these words have in common.

Okay.

Let's have a look.

Let's sound out the word write to help us.

Are you ready? Write.

Here again.

Write.

I can hear three sounds, but I can see five letters.

There's a diagraph there that I know already.

In fact, it's a split diagraph.

The I sound is formed from the I and the E working together.

Which is our silent letter? Let's have a look.

Yes, our silent letter in these words was the W at the beginning.

We can't hear it when we pronounce the word.

And just as before, in Old English this W was pronounced.

We've lost that sound, but we've kept the spelling.

What letter does that W always appear with? Can you see? The letter R.

The W loves the letter R and they often come together at the beginning of a word.

Here are some other words that follow the same pattern.

Wrote, the past tense of write.

Wreck, like a shipwreck at sea.

And wrist, like the part of the body.

Okay, let's have a look at our spelling words.

Here are our spelling words.

I'm going to say them twice, and then put them into a sentence to help you understand their meaning.

Your job is to pause the video and copy them down really carefully.

Be really attentive to the spelling.

You don't want to be learning the wrong spelling of any of these words.

Ready? Number one.

Thumb.

I have hurt my thumb.

Pause and write the word.

Number two.

Doubt.

I doubt that you will make any mistakes.

Pause and copy it down.

Number three.

Knock.

I can hear a knock at the door.

Number five.

Knee.

I have broken my knee.

Pause and copy it down.

Number five.

Knight.

The knight rode in on horseback.

Pause and copy it down.

Number six.

Reign.

The queen has had a long reign, a long time on the throne.

Pause and copy it down.

Number seven.

Gnarled.

The tree had gnarled branches.

Pause and copy it down.

Number eight.

Write.

Write your spelling now.

Pause and copy it down.

Number nine.

Wrong.

Please don't get it wrong.

And last one, number 10.

Island.

This is an interesting one.

We haven't looked at this word yet today.

In fact, it's quite unusual.

There wasn't a rule or a pattern that we could explore here, but there is a silent letter.

Can you see it? Island.

That's right, it's the S.

I don't say is-land, I say island, that S is our silent letter that we need to watch out for.

And it's a really useful spelling to know so I've popped it in at the end.

Copy it down now really carefully.

Say to yourself is-land to help you remember how to spell it.

Okay, pause the video, give yourself as much time as you need to double check that you've written all of your spellings correctly.

And well done! That's the end of our spelling lesson for today.

I really look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye!.

I've finished the video