Silent Letters

This is a beginner (A1) level worksheet about silent letters in English spelling. The worksheet also contains a lot of useful vocabulary for A1 learners, and contains some very basic  listening exercises.

Students will read a very simple story and  choose which words they think have silent letters in them. Then the class will listen to an audio of a man reading the story and see if they were correct. Then the class will learn about silent e’s at the end of words like “make” and “home” and then practice pronouncing common words with silent e’s at the end.

Next students will look at how we pronounce “ed” at the end of words. They will look at words that have a silent “e” (such as looked, washed, etc) and words in which the “e” in “ed” is pronounced (such as wanted, decided, etc.)

Finally, students will read through a short story about a boy who finds an injured bird and see if they can find the silent letters. Then they will listen to an audio of a man reading the story.

This worksheet will work well with any beginner level class struggling with the inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation in English, but will also provide useful vocabulary and some listening practice.