Silent K in KN

At the start of a word, kn is /n/. A small closed set, exceptionless, and easy to teach because every member begins the word.

Silent letters

kn- SILENT_KN_01

Strong rule · High reliability · Common · Intermediate · Reading and spelling

• /n/ n: knee, know, knife

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 11: Advanced Patterns & Silent Letters

Child explanation

When you see k and n together at the start of a word, the k is quiet. Knee, know, knife.

The rule

When a word begins kn, the k is silent and the word begins with /n/.

What is really going on

The /kn/ cluster was pronounced in Old and Middle English and simplified to /n/ around the seventeenth century. The set is closed — no new English words are formed with initial kn — which is what makes it fully reliable. The k is never silent elsewhere.

Why English does this

People really did say /kniː/ for knee. The k stopped being pronounced about four hundred years ago, after the spelling had been fixed by print.

Position in the word

• Beginning of a word — The only position. Kn does not occur elsewhere as a unit. For example: knee, know, knife, knock.

When this rule does not work

• The k and n are in different syllables or morphemes: dark-ness, black-nose, weak-ness.

Examples

Easy examples

knee, know, knife, knock, knot

More examples

knit, knight, knob, knuckle, kneel, knew, known, knapsack, knowledge

Pseudo-words

Made-up words that follow the rule. A child who reads these has the pattern rather than the vocabulary.

knab, knep, knim

Contrast pairs

• knight versus night — Homophones, different spellings.
• know versus no
• knot versus not

Decodable sentences

• I know how to knit.
• The knight hurt his knee.
• Do not knock the knife off the table.

Common reading mistakes

• knight: a child reads /k/ /n/ /aɪ/ /t/, where the word is /naɪt/. Silent letter pronounced and the trigraph split.
• knee: a child reads /kniː/, where the word is /niː/. Silent letter pronounced.

Teacher note

Teach kn, wr and gn together as one lesson: three silent letters, all at the start of a word, all closed sets, all exceptionless. That grouping is far more memorable than three lessons weeks apart, and it gives children a category — 'quiet letters at the front' — to file new words into.

Learn these first

• The consonants that keep one sound — b d f h j k l m n p r t v w z — Fifteen consonants represent the same sound almost everywhere they appear. They are the reliable floor the rest of the system is built on.

Related rules

• Silent W in WR — wr- — At the start of a word, wr is /r/. Like kn, a closed set with no exceptions.
• Silent G in GN — gn- / -gn — G is silent before n at the start of a word and after n at the end — gnat, gnome, sign, design.
• Silent B in MB and BT — -mb / -bt — At the end of a word, b after m is silent — lamb, thumb, climb. In debt and doubt, b before t is silent too.
• Silent L in selected word families — alk / alm / alf / olk — L is silent in a small set of established families — walk, calm, half, folk — and in almost nothing else. Milk, silk, help and salt all keep their l.

• Previous in Silent letters: Silent L in selected word families — alk / alm / alf / olk — L is silent in a small set of established families — walk, calm, half, folk — and in almost nothing else. Milk, silk, help and salt all keep their l.
• Next in Silent letters: Silent W in WR — wr- — At the start of a word, wr is /r/. Like kn, a closed set with no exceptions.
• All reading rules

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