'Silent letters' tutor notes

The silent letters topic area aims to help learners revise and remember which words have silent letters in them.

How does this tie in with the curriculums?

• England
  Ww/L1.1 - spell correctly words used most often in work, studies and daily life.
  
• Wales
  As England.
• Northern Ireland
  As England.
• Scotland
  See www.aloscotland.com for details of the Scottish curriculum.

In the Skillswise module you'll find:

Silent letters game
This is a variation on space invaders - now called 'Silent Invaders'. Words come down on spaceships and the learner has to decide which silent letter 'gun' to zap the alien invader with.
All the words in this game are voiced.

N.B: We have had a lot of feedback about this game, because it includes words like 'almond' and 'where', which in many parts of the UK don't include a silent letter. The words in the game were selected by the Skillswise team and a basic skills tutor. All of the words used in the game contain a letter (or letters) defined in dictionary pronunciation notes as being silent. However, many dictionaries follow a southern English pronunciation and differences in regional accents mean that in some areas certain silent letters are sounded e.g. 'h' in 'where'.
As tutors we hope that you can point this out to learners and explain how differences in their accent can affect silent letter pronunciation. This will still allow learners to be able to visually recognise and spell commonly recognised silent letters in words.
We realise that silent letters are an area of some heated debate, but this section is intended as one possible way to help learners improve their spelling and not a complete answer in itself.

TOP TIP! To see the game completely full screen, press the F11 key on the keyboard. This takes away the distraction of the top browser bar. To bring the browser bar back, just press F11 again!

Silent Letters quiz
The learner can choose their level. Level A is the easiest, level C the hardest.
We have now put in place a system that will allow the student to print out a certificate if they score 50% or more in the quiz. This will appear as a link on the results page - click on the link and the certificate will appear in a new window. A learner can write their name in once the certificate is printed.
Please note: the quizzes in this module use sound. For details of the free software you need on your machine to hear this sound, please see below.

Silent letters factsheet
Letters that can appear as silent letters, with examples, on one 'print-out-and-keep' sheet.

Silent letters worksheet
There is one printable worksheet for this topic area, which is a silent letters crossword. The answers are contained on the separate answers sheet.

Technical help:

To get the most out of this topic area you need the following 'plug-ins':

• Flash
  The game in this module uses the Flash browser plug-in. This is free to download and should only take a few minutes. You can follow the BBC WebWise instructions to download it to your machine.
  Find out more.
  If you don't have Flash the same learning points are covered in the quiz and in the worksheets and factsheets.
• Realplayer
  The activity in this topic section uses Realplayer. This is software that allows you to view and hear the video clips. Realplayer is free to download and should only take a few minutes. You can follow the BBC WebWise instructions to download it to your machine.
  Find out more

If you are new to the web, why not try the BBC WebWise online course, Becoming WebWise? It's free, you can do it in your own time from any computer and it will take you through everything you need to know to use the web successfully in your teaching.
Find out more about WebWise.

You can find out more about the technical requirements for Skillswise in our Help - Technical Information section.

Taking it further:

With Skillswise
Don't forget to visit Lesson plans and Teaching inspirations for more ideas for teaching syllables and spelling.

With the web
Here's a few suggestions of other places on the web that you might find useful resources that you can adapt for teaching silent letters.

• Game and more
  A very simple, yet effective, game from the British Council site that aims to help learners of English as a foreign language brush up their skills. The game pracises silent 'g', but there is also a lot of background information on the site about silent letters, plus links to other resources.
• Feeling poetic?
  Set a silent letters poetry challenge. Pick a selection of words with silent letters and get students to write a short poem containing some of the words. Visit the BBC Arts poetry sub-site for inspiration.

Please note that the BBC isn't responsible for the content found on other websites.