Vocabulary Assessment · Grades 3–5
Schwa and Silent Letters Assessment
A printable assessment for grades 3-5 on the two ways a word is not spelled the way it sounds: letters that are written but not pronounced, and the unstressed schwa vowel. Twenty-four items with a complete answer key.
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What this assessment checks
Two related habits that separate a good speller from a student who spells by sound alone:
- Silent letters in common words (k, w, b, g, s, t, h, c)
- The schwa: the vowel in an unstressed syllable that flattens to ‘uh’
- Telling a silent letter from a fully sounded word
How to use it
Give it in grade 3 or later — the schwa is not audible to a student who has not yet noticed stress. Read the words aloud yourself if you want to assess the concept rather than reading fluency.
Reading the results
The schwa is the most common vowel sound in English and the least taught, so a low Section B score the first time is the expected result rather than a red flag — what matters is whether a student can find the unstressed syllable at all. In Section C, none is a correct and deliberate answer twice: a student who reports a silent letter in every word has learned to expect one rather than to hear one.
| Resource type | Assessment (printable PDF) |
| Grade range | Grades 3–5 |
| Items | 24 across 3 sections |
| Answer key | Included on the final page |
| Time | About 20 minutes |
| Access | Full Member |