Why are ‘quiet’ and ‘quite’ listed as homophones?

These two words are actually what the National Curriculum Spelling programme for Year 2 calls ‘near homophones’, which are what their name suggests: words that nearly sound the same.

When teaching these, just explain to your pupils that some words nearly sound the same, and that these are called ‘near homophones’.

The reason we teach them is because they are often misheard and can be potentially confusing for children to spell.