Silent Consonants Game Pack

It’s time for a Silent Consonants Game Pack!

This is a sample from the resources you’ll find in The Library.

* Click on the teal download button towards the END of this post to grab the free games.
**I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Silent Consonants: Two Reasons Why

By this stage in the teaching of phonics, you probably feel comfortable with silent e and its roles in the English language. Most learners meet silent e in the first grade.

But as you progress in your phonics knowldge, you meet a silent consonant face-to-face and think, “Why, oh why, are there silent consonants in the first place?” Is it just to confuse our learners?

While there are probably entire chapters and books that could be written on this subject, I’m just going to keep it simple by offereing two reasons.

1. One primary reason we have silent consonants is because English has its origins other languages, namely Greek and Latin.

Many of our words are built with Greek or Latin prefixes, suffixes, and roots/stems. For example, microscope comes from a Greek prefix (micro) and Greek root (scope) and the word sequel comes from the Latin stem sequ/sec meaning to “follow.”

Sometimes, the reason a letter is silent in a word is because the word originated from a different language where the letter was pronounced. Take for example the silent b in doubt. Both the Latin word and Italian word, dubitare, meaning “to doubt”, have a b that is pronounced.

So when a letter is silent, it may be a fun little adventure to look into the etymology {word origin} of a word with your learners. I would recommend getting an etymology dictionary, which does a lot of that work for you!

2. A second reason you may have a silent consonant is because the letter is a part of a digraph or trigraph.

Note: A digraph is two letters forming one sound like ch, kn, or th; a trigraph is three letters forming one sound like igh, tch, and dge.

For example, knife, gnat, and write all have digraphs at the beginning in which the first letter is silent. Again, check your etymology on these words!

Words like watch and fudge have silent letters. In watch, you don’t hear the t; in fudge, you don’t hear the d.

Silent Consonants Game Pack

To help your learners with reading these kinds of words, I’m sharing four NO PREP games, two of each kind, for free with you today!

1. Row of 4 ~ To practice reading one-syllable and two-syllable words
2. Is it Silent? ~ Roll a die/dice and tell if the underlined letter is voiced or silent { An answer key included.}

Click below to download these free games:

Enjoy teaching!
~Becky