Silent letters for 11 plus English

A silent letter is written, not said. Many come in pairs. K before n: knee, knock. W before r: write, wrong. M, b at the end: thumb, lamb. G before n: gnaw, sign. S, t: castle, listen. And a silent h: honest, hour. A word in the same family can say the letter: signal sounds the g in sign. Learn the pairs. Find a word that says it.

Spell the word for a tiny bit of bread. It rhymes with thumb, but so does drum, with no b. So ask its family: crumble. In crumble, you hear the b. So it belongs: crumb.

The trap is leaving out the letter you cannot hear. Spell knife by ear, and you get nife. Listen becomes lisen. Both sound right in your head. Look for the pairs: k before n, s before t.

• 5.1Tricky words to learnLearn it in parts, and give it a trick
• 5.2HomophonesExpand it, then check the meaning
• 5.3Adding prefixes and suffixesLook at the root before you add
• 5.5Hidden vowels and double lettersSay it in a spelling voice
• 5.6ie or ei, and other rules that bendRule first, then the words that bend it

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