I remember when I was teaching second grade, there were so many lessons and facets of Balanced Literacy, aka teaching reading and language arts, that you could spend all day on just that! One of my favorite times was pulling small groups to my back table so we could read individually leveled texts and really monitor their progress.
But, the question I would get all the time is, "but, WHYYYY Mrs. Piland, does that word sound like that?! It looks nothing like it sounds!"
Trying to teach phonics and word mechanics of the English language was honestly one of the most challenging parts - because there's an exception to every rule! And some rules that just don't make sense at all.
Enter the chat: silent letters and pairs. Why does "ph" make the "f" sound? Why does "gh" go silent in "igh"? All of these life mysteries and more, probably with some latin or ancient root cause, made absolutely no sense, but yet we forge on.
In this activity we have three levels of sneaky silent letters to discuss, identify and properly color code. The little buggers...
Level 1 is identifying the silent -e ending for emerging readers
Level 2 is identifying silent -e, k- or w- for intermediate readers
Level 3 is identifying silent pairs of ph-, wr-, kn- and -gh for advanced readers
You can find this stellar sheet to download at our TeachersPayTeachers listing below, or you'll find it included in our Beyond the Text Bundles for Blooming Rose Blasts Off!
Individual Listing:
Bundle Listings here on our store, scroll to choose level:
So tell me, what is the trickiest phonetic conundrum that still trips up you or your students?!
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