In our spelling lesson for this week we have a number of words containing silent letters.
MONDAY
In a number of words you will find ea pronounced as short e. The board of simplified spelling has suggested that we drop the a, which is a silent letter, from these words. If we adopted their suggestion, words like head would be spelled hed. Note the spelling of the following words in which ea is pronounced as short e and the a is silent.
Spread, stead, threat, meant, pleasant, stealth.
TUESDAY
We have a number of words ending in ough in which the gh is silent.
1. In some of these words the ou is pronounced like ow. We have already changed the spelling of a few of these words, for example, we no longer use plough, but write it plow.
2. In other words ending with ough the ugh is silent and the words end with a long o sound, as in though. Many writers have dropped the silent letters ugh and spell this simply tho.
3. A few other words ending with ough end with a u sound and those who adopt the simplified spelling have dropped the ough and used simply u, as in through; many writers spell it simply thru. Observe the spelling of the following words and mark the silent letters:
Bough, through, thorough, furlough, borough, though.