Silent letters and unstressed vowels

Narrator: So… to defeat the dragon, you're just going to tie her up and wait?

Character: Ah ha

Narrator: Wait until the night comes.

Characters giggle

Narrator: Well, seems a tad risky to me, but I'm sure you know what you're doing!

Night is here…now what?

Character screams

Narrator: Aaaah! We weren't waiting for night, we were waiting for 'knight'! The 'k' is a silent letter!

Some words have letters that we don't hear when we say them, like we're on an 'island'.

Or there's a 'castle'

Hey where'd you go?

Oh well I never 'doubted' you.

[Theme music][School bell rings]

Mr McPartlin: Hello, I'm Mr McPartlin, and today we're going to look at ways to improve our spelling by finding out more about silent letters and unstressed vowels.

Sometimes words follow the rules and we can logically work out how to spell them.But there are other words that are a bit rebellious and do not follow the rules — or are exceptions to a specific rule.These words are always more difficult to spell.

The first group of words we're going to focus on today are words that include silent letters.Can you think of any words that include silent letters?

A silent letter word includes a letter or letters that we cannot hear when we say the word.For example, the word "thumb".Say the word "thumb" again.Which letter is silent?Yes, it's the "B".

Okay, another one.How about the word "knot"?Which letter is silent here?It's the "K".

Now, put me on pause and try to think of five more words that include silent letters.Did you manage to think of any more?Here are the five I came up with:

knifecrumblambgnatwristDid you spot the silent letters?

Let's have another look at some more words that have silent letters.Pause the video while you draw out this grid.I'm going to say some words and I want you to write them in the correct column. Ready?

HonestKneeWrongNumbKnowledgeHourlyWreckClimbPut me on pause again while you have a go at writing them in the correct boxes on your grid.All done? It should look something like this:

In the silent "W" box: wrong and wreckIn the silent "H" box: honest and hourlySilent "K": knee and knowledge(We don't say k-nee or k-nowledge — you don't hear the K at all.)Silent "B": numb and climb(We can't hear the B in either of those.)Well done if you got them all right!

Now we're going to look at another spelling strategy.This time we're looking at words that include unstressed vowels.Now, that does sound complicated.However, all it means is words that have more than one syllable and include vowels that are not easy to hear.

Sometimes when we say a word, we stress some syllables more than others.For example, the word "different".We say diffrent and we might not stress the E — otherwise, we would say different.

Now, I'm going to say some words and see if you can identify the unstressed vowels. Ready?

MiserableDeafeningFactoryJanuaryPoisonousPause the video to write them all down and underline the unstressed vowels.All done? It should look something like this.

How did you do?

These words can be more difficult to spell because we can't always fully hear the unstressed vowels when we say the word aloud.This means we might miss out a letter when we spell the word.

Look at the word "dictionary".We might say dictionry rather than dictionary.It would be easy to see how the A could be missed when we write the word — because we cannot fully hear it.

Try to spot some of the unstressed vowels in these words at home.Which vowels do we sometimes not stress when we read these words?

JewellerySeparateLibraryInterestTry reading them aloud — once in the way you'd normally say it, and once putting emphasis on all the vowels.How does the word change?That will help you spot the unstressed vowels.

Happy spotting!For more help, challenges and games on this subject, visit bbc.co.uk/bitesize