Silent Letters

We have many words with silent letters.

This means that we don’t pronounce them.

Here are some silent letters and a few examples:

• The letter ‘b’ that follows ‘m’ at the end of words (like bomb, comb, doubt and thumb).
• The letter ‘c’ when it is placed after an ‘s’ (‘sc’) (like descend, disciple, fascinate and scene).
• The letter  ‘k’ when it appears at the beginning of a word followed by ‘n’ (‘kn’) (like knee, knot and know).
• The letter ‘p’ at the beginning of a word followed by ‘s’ (like psychology, psychiatrist and psychotherapy).
• The letter ‘h’ when it appears after some consonants (‘gh’, ‘wh’, ‘rh’) (like ghost, what, when, where and rhino).

Now test yourself.

Say all these words out loud and see if you are keeping those letters silent.