Homophones 1

For many kids, learning to spell requires a little extra help – repeatedly writing out words simply doesn’t work. We want to share some of our favourite lessons and cool strategies for making spellings memorable and interesting. Kids are outraged by words that are spelt strangely and enjoy learning how they can be mastered.

We are obsessed with making spelling fun and thought-provoking. We will be sharing tried and tested strategies that utilise the brain’s love of colour, humour, imagery and connectivity. Strategies are helpful for all kids, not just the ‘funky’ spellers, and we hope to inspire you and your kids to think about spelling afresh. With new skills, enthusiasm and Handy products, the kids can relax a little about their spelling and focus on what’s most important about their writing: imagination, comprehension and expression.

Homophones 2

King Covered in Ketchup

Without accurate reading, children struggle to access the curriculum independently – it is the most important of all the skills to master and we must make sure no child is left behind. Fortunately, it is also far easier than spelling to put right. Daily reading with an adult of between 20 – 40 minutes* can enable a child to catch up 12 months in 6. Exposure to our irregular language in a supportive environment with texts that are not too hard (less than five mistakes per page) and activities to motivate the children, alongside word study, has been proven to be very effective. Here are some games to get you started but if your child is not making progress despite regular reading of a structured reading scheme, it is best you speak with their teacher about specialised help. 

Reading Races & Colouring Fun. During reading sessions, it’s sometimes great to have another focus in addition to reading accurately. If this shift in focus can be a game that simultaneously encourages the child to learn about the words they are reading, then so much the better. Download the Reading Races and Colouring Fun sheets and surprise your children. You can play this as many times as you like, changing what you are looking for each time.  

Choose things to search for that your child may struggle with along with simple things like animals in the pictures, for example. Other examples of good things to look for are: question marks, exclamation marks, speech marks, full stops, words beginning with b or d, magic e words, plural words, words with silent letters, words with -ed or -ing on the end, words with double consonants in the middle, the list is endless.