English Spelling & Word Studyusually ages 9–10

Silent Letters in Words

Spell words containing silent letters that are remnants of earlier pronunciation or etymology, recognising common silent-letter patterns and using word origins to remember them

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

Identify and spell words with silent initial consonants: knight, know, write, wrap, gnaw, psalm, applying knowledge that these letters were once pronounced
Spell words with silent internal letters: doubt (b), island (s), muscle (c), solemn (n), using etymological connections to aid memory (e.g. doubt from Latin dubitare)
Use word families and etymology to remember silent letters, e.g. sign is related to signal where the g is pronounced

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Try this together

When your child writes words that have silent letters — like "knight," "wrap," or "lamb" — do they remember to include the silent letter even though you can't hear it?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on

Spellings from Greek, French and Latinages 8–10Silent letters are remnants of etymology; etymological spelling pattern knowledge provides the framework for understanding why letters are present but silent

Silent Letters in Wordsthis skill · ages 9–10

Unlocks

Nothing on the map depends on this yet.

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E3LY11medium confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

use phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships and less common letter patterns to spell words

AC9E3LY08low confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

write words using joined letters that are clearly formed and consistent in size

AC9E3LY09low confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

understand how to apply knowledge of phoneme–grapheme (sound–letter) relationships, syllables, and blending and segmenting to fluently read and write multisyllabic words with more complex letter patterns

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

EN3-SPELL-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 3

EN2-SPELL-01low confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 2

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2E5LY03medium confidenceEnglish · Level 5 · Literacy strand

VC2E3LY05medium confidenceEnglish · Level 3 · Literacy strand

VC2E5LY04medium confidenceEnglish · Level 5 · Literacy strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Advanced Spelling Conventionsages 9–10 Homophones (age 9+)ages 9–10 Spelling -able & -ibleages 9–10 Spelling Word Lists (age 9+)ages 9–10

All Spelling & Word Study skills →