Lesson video

Hello everybody, welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mrs. Richards, and in our session today, we are going to practise and apply our knowledge of silent letters.

We also have our spelling test.

We're going to do lots of fun games and activities together to help us practise.

So let's get started.

We're going to start our lesson by recapping our knowledge of silent letters.

Then, we will learn a spelling practise strategy.

And at the end, we have our spelling test.

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

Pause the video, and go and get any resources that you might need.

Okay, let's recap our learning on silent letters.

Here's our key vocabulary.

Silent letters.

Well done for joining in.

Phonics.

Diagraph.

Good! I want you to pause the video and tell the screen the meaning of each of these terms. Off you go.

Okay, let's have a look together.

Silent letters are.

They're letters within a word, which cannot be predicted by its pronunciation.

How about phonics? Phonics is.

Letter and sound correspondences, that's right.

And a diagraph, you should know from your phonics teaching, are the two letters representing one sound.

Okay.

Let's start with a silent letter spot.

Here are some of the words which we looked at in our last session.

I want you to spot the silent letter in each row.

Here are the words.

Crumb.

Lamb.

Doubt.

What's the silent letter there? Knock.

Knee.

Knight.

Can you spot it? Reign.

Gnarled.

What's the silent letter on that line? Wrapper.

Write.

Wrong.

Okay, four different silent letters to spot.

Here's a clue to help you.

If you're stuck and you can't spot the silent letter, sound out the word, and sound button it.

Then you can decide which letter you can't hear when you're sounding out the word.

Let's go.

Okay, let's see how you got on.

Let's start with the first row.

Crumb, lamb, and doubt.

Did you spot our silent letter? Let's sound out the first word just to double check.

Crumb.

C-r-u-mb.

Four sounds but five letters, which one was silent? The B, that's right.

A silent B.

And it likes the letter M and the letter T.

You can see it's often appearing at the end of my words.

I wonder if you could pause the video and tell the screen any other words which might have the same spelling pattern.

Have a go now.

Okay, could you think of any? I could think of some.

Bomb.

Plumber.

Thumb.

Did you get those? Okay, let's have a look at another line.

How about these? Knock, knee, and knight.

What's the silent letter? Let's sound out the first word.

Knock.

Kn-o-ck.

Knock.

Three sounds but five letters.

Hmm, I know the C and the K at the end are a diagraph, they're making one sound.

K-n-o-ck.

So what's the silent letter? The K, that's right, the silent K.

Well done.

And look, the silent K often appears at the beginning of a word, next to before the letter N.

I wonder if you can think of any other words that have this same spelling pattern, the silent K and the N.

Pause the video now, and tell the screen.

How did you get on? I could think of some more.

I could think of kneel, and I could think of knit, like to knit a jumper.

Okay, let's have a look at another row.

In this row, could you spot the silent letters? Let's sound out the first word to check.

Reign.

Re-ign.

Reign.

I know that I've got a diagraph, which makes the A sound.

E-I, r-eign.

But what's the silent letter, what can't I hear? Yes, the G, well done if you spotted that.

Brilliant.

I wonder if you could think of any other words that have a silent G.

Look at the patterns here, that silent G loves the letter N.

And it can either come at the beginning of the word, or, at the end of the word.

Okay, pause the video now and tell the screen.

Okay, how did you get on? I could think of two really fun ones.

Gnome is spelt g-nome.

Like a garden gnome.

And gnash is spelt g-nash.

Gnash means to grind your teeth.

Do you remember in the book Where The Wild Things Are, the wild things roar their terrible roars, and they gnash their terrible teeth? Okay, let's have a look at another row.

How about in this row? Could you spot the silent letter here? Let sound out that word write, are you ready? Wr-i-te.

Write.

I know that I've got a diagraph.

The long I vowel is formed from I split E.

Wr-i-te.

So what's the silent letter, what can't I hear? Yes, you've got it, the letter W, well done.

I wonder if you can think of any more words that have the same spelling? Look, the W often likes the letter R, and it often comes at the beginning of a word.

Pause the video and tell the screen now.

Okay, could you think of any more? Yes, I could think of wrist, yeah, just like you, well done! Okay.

Here are our silent letters.

B, K, G and W.

And remember, they always have friends, other letters that they appear next to in a word.

Let's try applying our spellings in sentences.

I'm going to read you the sentence aloud.

Okay, let's try applying our spellings in sentences.

I'm going to read you the sentence aloud, but, you'll notice, in the version that you can see on the board, there are two gaps.

I want you to write down the missing word to go in each gap.

Are you ready? The gnarled branch of the tree reached down towards the knight on horseback.

The gnarled branch of the tree reached down towards the knight on horseback.

Pause the video now, and have a go at writing those two words.

Okay, are you ready? Shall I show you the answers? The gnarled, yes, gnarled, with that silent G.

We could say g-narled, the g-narled branch of the tree.

Reached down towards the knight.

Yes, knight, spelt as in the knight, the soldier on horseback.

It's k-night.

Have a look at your spellings.

If you made any errors, don't worry, but self correct them now.

We learn through making mistakes and then practising.

Okay.

Let's have a look at another sentence.

Please try not to use the wrong spelling when you write.

Please try not to use the wrong spelling when you write.

Okay, pause if you need more time, otherwise, I'll show you the answers.

This one had the same silent letter in each word.

Please try not to use the wrong, with the silent W, the wrong spelling when you write, with the silent W.

It might be if you've made an error, that you missed that silent letter.

But there might also be another error and a different part of the word.

That's okay.

It doesn't matter if we've made a mistake, just self correct it now, and give yourself some time to practise.

Okay, you ready for another sentence? I doubt that you have broken your thumb, said the doctor.

I doubt that you have broken your thumb, said the doctor.

Your two words are doubt and thumb.

If you need more time, you can pause, otherwise, I'll show you the answer.

I doubt.

What was the silent letter in doubt? It's the B, that's right.

I doubt that you have broken your thumb.

What's the silent letter in thumb? Yes, the B as well, that's right! In the first word, the B appears next to the letter T, towards the end of the word.

In the second word, thumb, the B appears next to the letter M, and it comes right at the end of that word.

Okay.

Self correct any errors, and then we'll keep going.

Okay, I'm going to teach you a spelling practise strategy.

And I think that we've hinted at what this strategy might be already.

Our strategy for today is say it as it looks.

The trick is to mispronounce the word, emphasising the tricky letters, the challenging letters, especially when these are making an unusual sound in the word.

In this case, our challenging letters might be making no sound at all in the word.

Okay, here's an example.

To help us remember how to spell knock, when I'm writing, in my head, I'm going to say, k-nock.

The same with island.

When I'm writing the word island, in my head, I'm going to say is-land.

Nobody has to know, but it's a great trick that helps me remember how to spell these words.

I do the same all the time with lots of different words.

I do it for Wednesday.

I always forget the D, so I say in my head, Wed-nes-day.

I do the same for February, the month of the year.

I always miss that letter R, so in my head, I say, Feb-ru-ary.

These are little tricks that help us to remember how to spell these words correctly.

Pause now and give these two a try.

Knock and island.

Okay, you might have felt a bit silly, but it's such a useful trick.

Why is this a particularly useful strategy? The strategy forces us to interact with the word, to look closely at it, and identify for ourselves what's challenging or tricky about its spelling.

That might be the silent letter, but equally it might be another part of the word, and that's fine.

The strategy highlights the tricky letters for us, and it helps us to remember the correct spelling.

So, now it's your turn.

Your spelling words are on the board.

I want you to pause the video and practise using our strategy.

I'm particularly interested in if you come up with any useful tricks to help us remember doubt, reign, write, and wrong.

These can be difficult when we're trying to say it as it sounds.

Have a go, and see what you come up with.

Okay, I'm sure that you came up with some brilliant tricks to help you remember the spelling of these words.

I wonder how you were saying doubt.

Were you saying doub-t, doub-t? Is that what you're going to say in your head? How about write? W-rite? W-rite? I wonder how you could say this to help you remember it.

It's useful to explore these things.

Okay.

Now it's time for our spelling test.

If you think that you need more practise before our test, that's absolutely fine.

Take as much practise time as you need.

Otherwise, we'll get started.

Here are some strategies to help us during our test.

Number one, pause, take a deep breath, and take as much time as you need.

Trying writing the word more than once if you're unsure.

Think about which strategy looks right.

Try writing the word more than once, and now sound out the different spellings.

Which spelling sounds right? Okay, if you're ready for your spelling test, you need a clean sheet of paper, and a pencil, and you need to put the numbers one to 10 down the margin, or down the side of your page.

Make sure you can't see your spelling words anywhere.

Pause the video, and get ready.

Okay.

Are you ready to get started? All right.

Word number one.

I'll say the word twice, and I'll put it into a sentence.

Thumb.

Thumb.

I have broken my thumb.

Pause the video if you need more time.

Number two, doubt.

Doubt.

I doubt you will make a mistake when spelling this word.

Pause the video if you need more time.

Number three, knock.

Knock.

I can hear a knock at the door.

Pause the video if you need more time.

Number four.

Knee.

Knee.

I have a very knobbly knee.

Pause.

Number five, knight, knight.

This is the knight as in the soldier on horseback.

The knight rode towards the battle.

Pause.

Number six, reign, reign.

The queen has had a long reign.

Pause the video.

Next one.

Number seven, gnarled, gnarled.

The tree had gnarled branches.

Pause.

Spelling number eight, write, write.

Please write your spellings carefully.

Pause.

Spelling number nine, wrong.

Wrong.

It is okay to get things wrong.

Pause.

Last one, number 10, island, island.

The pirate was stuck upon the island.

Okay, pause the video if you need more time to reflect on your spellings, look carefully at each one, double check, do they look right, do they sound right? Okay, are you ready? Number one, thumb.

T-H-U-M-B.

Number two, doubt.

D-O-U-B-T.

Pause the video here if you need any more time.

Don't worry if you've made an error, we can learn from our mistakes.

The important thing is to self correct any errors now.

Number three, knock.

K-N-O-C-K.

Self correct, pause the video.

Number four, knee.

K-N-E-E.

Self correct, pause if you need to.

Number five, knight.

K-N-I-G-H-T.

This is knight like the soldier on horseback.

Self correct, pause the video.

Number six, reign.

R-E-I-G-N.

This is reign like the period of time on a throne, for a king, or queen.

Self correct, pause the video.

Number seven, gnarled.

G-N-A-R-L-E-D.

Self correct, pause the video.

Number eight, write.

W-R-I-T-E.

Self correct, pause the video.

Number nine, wrong, W-R-O-N-G.

Self correct, pause the video.

And number 10, island.

I-S-L-A-N-D.

Self correct, pause the video, and pause for as long as you need to now to check all of those spellings, make any corrections.

At the end, you should have written each word down correctly.

Okay, let's reflect.

So, things to be proud of.

Number one, be proud of how much you practised.

Did you practise every day for 10 minutes? Number two, be proud of the number of practise strategies that you used.

Did you try mispronouncing any words? Spelling test reflection point number three, be proud of how you're paying close attention to words in your reading and writing.

I wonder if you've seen any of these words around you this week.

Number four, in misspelt words, look at how many letters you spelt correctly, as well as the letters which were wrong.

I sometimes hear children say, I can't spell that word, but it's just not true! You can often spell the first letter, or the last letter, or some of the letters in between.

There's no such thing as a good or a bad speller.

We're all improving, and learning all the time, adults as well.

So remember, learning comes from mistakes.

You might not be able to spell this word yet, but keep practising.

Well done for today's lesson! It's been so great to teach you.

I look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye!.