Lesson video

Hi there, and welcome to today's spelling lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss, I love spelling, and I'm really looking forward to teaching you.

Today, you need to bring your looking eyes, your listening ears, and your thinking brains, as well as something to write with and write on, and someone or something to talk to would be great as well.

Let's get right into today's spelling lesson then.

In today's lesson, we're going to practice and apply spelling words with the silent letters B, W, K, and G.

The outcome is: I can spell words with silent letters B, W, K, and G.

Here are the keywords for today's learning.

My turn, then your turn.

Make sure I can hear you say these: silent letter, phoneme, grapheme, pronunciation.

Brilliant.

Let's have a think about what these words mean then.

A silent letter is a letter that is not pronounced when the word is spoken, so we don't hear that letter said; it is there, it's within the word, but we don't hear it.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change its meaning in a word.

A grapheme is a letter or group of letters that represent those phonemes, that represent those sounds.

Pronunciation is the way in which a word is spoken.

Pronunciation can vary dependent on regional accent.

Please keep an eye and ear out for these keywords in today's learning; they're going to be very important.

Here's the outline for today's lesson.

We're practicing and applying spelling of silent letters B, W, K, and G.

We're going to have a look at the MB, WR, KN, and GN digraphs.

Then we're going to have a look at some strategies to practice.

And finally, we're going to apply spellings in a sentence.

Let's get looking at the MB, WR, KN, and GN spellings then.

The presence of silent letters in many English words is often a reflection of their older pronunciations.

So, how they would've been pronounced or said in the past.

Over time, as the English language evolved, the pronunciation of many words changed while their spellings did not.

This is why we have silent letters in some words today.

For example, the K in 'knight' was once pronounced.

We obviously don't pronounce it now; you say 'knight,' so we have a silent K, but in the past, it would've been pronounced.

Very interesting bit of history for you there.

A representation of the M sound includes MB.

The MB spelling can be known as having a silent letter because you cannot hear the B.

If we look at some words here, my turn, your turn: comb, thumb, climb, crumb, climbed.

You're not hearing the B in any of those words, are you?

The MB is working together a bit like a digraph to make that one phoneme, that M sound.

The MB spelling is usually found at the end of a word, and we can see in these words here.

It's consistently found at the end of the word.

In the example of 'climbed,' it is still at the end of the root word, and we've added that E-D suffix to the end.

Here you go.

MB still at the end of that root word, but we've just added that E-D suffix.

So have a look here.

Where is the MB spelling usually found in a word: A, B, C, or D?

You select the correct answer now.

Pause the video.

Fantastic.

Absolutely, it is found at the end.

Comb, thumb, lamb, climb.

Remember, we don't pronounce that B; it's a silent B.

That M and B are working together to make that M sound, and it's consistently found at the end of a word.

A representation of the R sound includes WR.

The WR spelling can be known as having a silent letter because we cannot hear that W when we say words with that WR spelling.

Let's have a look at some.

My turn, your turn: wrestle, wriggle, wrinkle.

Wrinkle like the wrinkles on a skin, write, and wrote.

Hmm.

So the WR spelling is usually found at the beginning of a word.

We can see that in these words here.

Also, if we know the present tense of a word that has that silent W, that WR spelling, then we will know the past tense.

So we can see the present tense of 'write' here.

We then know the spelling of 'wrote' in the past tense.

So where is the WR spelling usually found in a word?

Pause the video and select from A, B, C, or D.

Off you go.

Good job, team.

Absolutely, it is found at the beginning.

These words here: wrist, wreck as in to destroy or something that's been destroyed, wrong, and wreath like a Christmas wreath.

Show here that our WR spelling of that silent W likes to come at the beginning of a word.

A representation for the N sound includes KN.

The KN spelling can be known as having a silent letter because the K is not heard when we say the words.

Let's have a look at these words.

Know, as in I know, knew, knee, knock, and knocked.

If we look at these words, we can see that the KN spelling is usually found at the beginning of a word.

Interestingly as well, we can see here if we know the present tense of a KN word, so we know 'knock,' we will then also know how to spell the past tense, 'knocked.

' The root word's suddenly not going to change.

I mean, you can also see here with 'know' and 'knew.

' Anything true of knowledge is part of that word family, isn't it?

They're linked together.

So they're all going to have that KN spelling with that silent K.

So where is the KN spelling usually found in a word?

Choose from A, B, C, or D.

Pause the video now.

Brilliant job, everyone.

Absolutely, it's found at the beginning, similar to our WR.

These words show this: know, knew, knee, and knock.

A representation for the N sound includes GN.

The GN spelling can be known as having a silent letter because you cannot hear the G when words that contain it are pronounced.

Let's have a look at these: gnat, which is a type of small fly; gnaw, which means to chew; gnash, like you gnash your teeth together; a sign that you might read; and a design.

The GN spelling can usually be found at the beginning or the end of a word.

So there's two places in which this is commonly found, either at the beginning or at the end of a word.

Remember, in both examples, that G is not pronounced; we don't hear it when we say it, even when it's coming second, sign, design.

I'm hearing that N sound at the end, not GN.

In which two places is the GN spelling, that silent G, usually found in a word then?

Which two places?

Pause the video and select two from A, B, C, or D.

Off you go.

Good job.

It is found at the beginning and at the end.

Here we have 'gnat' and 'gnaw' that show that GN at the beginning, and 'sign,' which shows it at the end.

Homophone alert.

Remember, homophones are words that sound the same but are spelt differently and have different meanings.

"I need to finish my work.

" So that's something you need to do.

"The recipe required me to knead the dough," which is where you work on something with your hands.

They both sound exactly the same, don't they?

But they're spelt differently and have different meanings.

And in our 'knead,' as in you knead the dough, you can see our silent K.

"The stars are visible in the sky at night.

" "The brave knight rode into battle.

" Again, 'night' just with an N as in the night sky when it's dark, and 'knight' with a silent K is that chivalrous, honorable person who used to protect the realm.

And no, I haven't seen the film yet, and I know the answer to that question.

'No' spelled N-O is no, negative, and 'know' there with a silent K is to do with knowledge.

Remember that word family.

"I do not have time for this.

" Again, a negative 'not,' and then 'knot' with our silent K.

"She tied a knot in the rope.

" K-N-O-T.

That silent K is as in that knot that you might tie in a piece of rope.

Watch out for these homophones.

Choose the correct spelling of each for each sentence.

Watch out for the homophones.

A says, "The night/knight fought bravely.

" Think about the context.

B says, "I need/knead to borrow the glue for my artwork.

" C is, "I do not know/no the way to get there.

" And D is, "This is not/knot my bag.

" Pause the video and select the correct homophone to complete each sentence and say the sentence now.

Off you go, pause the video.

Good job.

So, "The night/knight fought bravely.

" Well, from that context, I know it must be a knight that maybe is from myths and had a sword.

So it's a silent K spelling.

"I need/knead to borrow the glue for my artwork.

" Knead, working the bread?

That wouldn't work.

It's "I need," that imperative.

You need something.

"I do not know/no the way to get there.

" That's that 'know' as in knowledge.

And, "This is not/knot my bag," that negative.

You are not gonna be tying a knot in it, are you, like that?

So pause the video and check and see how you did.

Great.

So here's a little check for us.

I wanna check to see if you've been paying attention.

I'd like you to put the words into the correct column to show which silent letter they use.

Be careful because not all of these words have a silent letter.

So some of them you'll be leaving out of the columns.

The words are: lamb, mob, wrong, while, knot, king, gnaw, comb, write, sign, whisper, knight.

Pause the video, put them into the correct columns.

And remember, some of them don't have silent letters.

Off you go.

Fantastic job, team.

Let's see how you've done them.

We can see 'lamb,' 'comb' both have that silent B.

'Wrong' and 'write' have that silent W.

'Gnaw' and 'sign' have that silent G, which remember can come at the beginning or the end of a word.

And silent K, we have 'knot' and 'knight.

' There were some words here which we didn't include.

'Mob' had no silent letters.

'Whisper' here had a slightly other silent letter, didn't it?

A silent H, which we haven't looked at here.

And 'while' also had a silent H.

So we don't pronounce it 'w-h-ile' or 'w-h-isper,' but we haven't looked at that silent H, have we?

Pause the video, see how you did, make any corrections, make any additions.

Off you go.

Onto our practice task then.

I'd like you to spell the words I'm going to say to you.

These words all have silent letters within them.

Listen carefully.

Consider where the silent letters are going to come in the word.

The first word is 'thumb.

' I gave you a thumbs up.

Thumb.

The next word is 'knight.

' The knight rode into battle.

Think about that.

There's a homophone there.

'Wriggle' is the next word.

Wriggle, I tried to wriggle free.

And the final word, 'sign.

' I read the sign.

So the words are thumb, knight, wriggle, sign.

Pause the video and have a go at writing them now.

Off you go.

Great job, team.

So let's have a look and see how you've done them.

The first word was 'thumb.

' Now, 'th' it's a TH spelling.

'Um', Now we've looked at a particular spelling for that M sound, haven't we?

We've looked at that MB spelling with that silent B.

So this is our correct spelling here: thumb.

The next one was 'knight,' and I said a knight rode into battle.

Now there's two spellings of knight, aren't there?

Be careful.

I'm not looking for the N-I-G-H-T spelling 'cause that would be the night sky.

I'm looking for that silent K, K-N-I-G-H-T.

So this is our correct spelling here.

The next word was 'wriggle.

' Now for that R sound, we've looked at a silent W, haven't we?

And it's that L-E spelling at the end of the word.

'Wriggle' is the correct spelling there.

And finally, we had 'sign.

' I read the sign.

'Ss-in', for that N sound, we've looked at that GN, haven't we, with that silent G.

And it can come at the beginning or the end.

It's at the end here.

So it's S-I-G-N, sign.

Great job.

If you've made any magical mistakes, if you've got any successes to share, share that now.

Make any corrections too.

Pause the video.

Onto then our next learning cycle, which is going to be strategies to practice.

Let's read the following word: sentence.

Sentence.

What do you notice about the spelling?

Is there a particular letter which we don't pronounce very clearly?

Do you notice anything strange about the spelling?

Pause the video and have a think.

Lovely conversations going on there.

So the S sound at the end of the word is represented by a C-E.

And it is also hard to hear our second E in this word, sentence.

I don't say 'sent-ence,' I don't really emphasize that E, sentence.

So it's not very clear that there's an E there.

And don't forget, it's a C-E at the end for 's' that sound, sentence.

It is a curriculum word, and so it's really helpful for us to remember for our reading and writing.

Here, watch out for that E and watch out for that C-E at the end.

Take a snapshot of that word now, (clicks) in your memory.

So which, then, from that snapshot in your memory, is the correct spelling here of sentence?

Pause the video and point to it now.

Brilliant.

Absolutely, it's C, isn't it?

Let's remember what's difficult about it.

That E, that second E, which isn't clearly pronounced, and that C-E for that 's' sound at the end.

Good job.

So spelling rules can help us know how to spell words, but it's really important that we spend some time practicing them as well.

When you practice, you remember the words more easily, and you get better at noticing how the words are spelt, and you become more confident in spelling them.

There are many different types of strategies that we can use, and today we're gonna use one of my favorite strategies: naughty letters, really useful, especially when we're doing silent letters 'cause there's obviously going to be a very clear, naughty letter already within the words.

So the naughty letter strategy can help us in several ways.

First, we have to look at the word very carefully.

This means that we are paying attention to how it's spelled and any difficulties in spelling it.

Then we have to copy out the word, but we copy it out in a very specific way.

We make sure that we write the naughty letter larger and differently than the rest of the words.

So we really emphasized on the bit that's difficult about that letter.

You could even draw a naughty face onto that naughty letter.

I'm gonna show you an example of this now.

So if you look here, this is an example of 'people.

' Now the naughty letter in people, in my opinion, is that O.

We don't say 'pe-ople,' do we?

We say 'people.

' So the E there makes sense, but the O being there is quite difficult.

So I call this the naughty letter.

And notice how I've written out 'people,' copied it out, but I've drawn the O larger and I've even drawn a naughty face inside of it.

So 'peOple,' knowing that that's my naughty letter.

So what order do these go in for this strategy?

Copy with a naughty letter.

Look carefully.

Put them into the correct order, one or two.

Off you go.

Okay, so the first thing we have to do of every word we look at really is we have to look carefully.

Then we copy it with.

we copy the word out again, we enlarge that naughty letter, and we can draw a silly face on it.

We should always look carefully at spellings before we practice them.

So I'd like you to choose three words to practice using this naughty letter strategy.

I'd like to choose the words that you found most difficult so far in this lesson.

Choose three words, have a go.

Consider the naughty letter.

I suggest picking words that we've used that have silent letters, or you could maybe pick a curriculum word 'cause in the silent letters, our naughty letters are gonna be quite obvious.

It's going to be that silent letter that you don't pronounce.

And choose three, and then have a go at writing out using that naughty letter strategy.

Pause the video.

Off you go.

Well done, team.

So I picked the words 'knocked,' 'wriggle,' and 'gnashed,' and they had a silent K, a silent W, and a silent G.

So I made sure that they are my naughty letters.

Perhaps you've even, with the words you've chosen, drawn some silly faces onto your naughty letters.

Did you enjoy writing them in that way?

Share your favorite naughty word that you've written out, a naughty letter with those around you, and check your spellings now.

Pause the video.

So we just use this really nice strategy to practice.

Now we're gonna move on to our final learning cycle, which is applying spellings within a sentence.

We are going to write a sentence containing some of our focus spellings.

When we write the whole sentence, we need to do several things at once.

So let's really take our time, perhaps even have a brain break before we do this.

We need to remember the whole sentence.

We need to sound out each word.

We need to think of any spelling rules.

And today, remember we've been looking at silent letters; think about where they come.

And then we need to look out for any common exceptional curriculum words.

Think about that curriculum word that we've looked at today, 'sentence.

' And finally, of course, we need to remember sentence punctuation: capital letters, full stops, any other commas or other punctuation that might be in our sentence.

So I'd like you to just listen to me say the sentence first.

So just listen, use those incredible ears.

"She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" "She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" So we're gonna use some strategies to help us remember this.

The first one: tapping out, using your head, shoulders, table, floor, I don't mind.

I like tapping it out 'cause it makes us hear each of those syllables in the words.

So make sure we don't miss any sounds.

"She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" Pause the video, tap that out now.

The next one: whispering out.

"She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" Pause the video and whisper that to yourself or to someone around you now.

Great, barely hear you, but I'm sure you were saying it.

And finally, counting the words on our fingers.

So make sure we don't miss any out.

"She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" "She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" Pause the video, say that sentence, and count each word on your fingers.

Go.

Great job.

So I'm gonna say the sentence one more time in a minute.

Then you are gonna have a go writing it.

Remember, sound out each word.

Look out for those curriculum or common exception words.

And don't forget sentence punctuation, capital letters, full stops.

I'm gonna say the sentence one more time.

"She wrote about a lamb that wriggled under a fence in her sentence.

" Pause the video and write that now.

Great job, team.

So let's check our work and make any corrections as you go along.

I saw some brilliant spelling there, some lovely handwriting, some great consideration to our curriculum words and silent letters.

So let's see how you've done.

'She' needs to have a capital letter.

'Wrote,' aha, our past tense of write or our silent W.

'About a lamb.

' Oh, 'lamb,' that's that silent B at the end there, isn't it?

'That wriggled,' again, silent W, wriggle here.

'Under a fence in her sentence.

' And that sentence was our curriculum word.

Watch out for that second E and that C-E spelling at the end.

How did you do?

What did you learn?

Did you make any matching mistakes?

Have you had any successes?

Share those mistakes and successes with those around you, and make any corrections now and learn from it for next time.

Pause the video, make those corrections now.

Great spelling today, everyone.

Today we've been spelling words with silent letters B, W, K, and G.

The spelling MB is often found at the end of a word, such as the word 'climb.

' The spelling KN with a silent K is usually found at the start of a word.

The spelling GN with a silent G is usually found at the start or end of a word.

And the spelling WR with a silent W is usually found at the start of a word.

Keep an eye out for these silent letters in your work, and also remember to watch out for homophones.

Keep up the great spelling, everyone, and I'll see you again soon.