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Author:
Susan M. Lloyd,
Sara Wernham
By
Jolly Learning Ltd
 Excellent!, 2008-01-22
We have used these for our son, who has just turned 4, alongside the teachers handbook. These books allow him to practice writing the letters we have learnt. Most importantly he has a real motivation to do them and always wants to learn the next letter.
Hopefully he will be a bit ahead when he starts school in September!
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List Price: £10.50
Our Price: £6.13
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By
Jolly Learning Ltd
Excellent for children in foundation learning, 2008-11-03
I have two children one is aged 18 months and one aged 4 1/2 and they both love the jolly phonics songs. Other people have posted that they are short but this is the beauty of it. You can play them in the car on repeat and they pick them up so quickly. Also the book that accompanies the CD helps parents to teach children the actions so that they remember the sounds. My son is about to start Jolly Phonics in school and this is the perfect tool for me to be able to aid that learning!!!!
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List Price: £8.50
Our Price: £3.39
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Author:
Pie Corbett
By
David Fulton Publishers
Thoroughly Useful!, 2005-02-22
Suitable for upper KS2 and secondary level, this is a great collection of literacy starters and warm-up activites. Many of the activities and games could be adapted for KS1 and lower junior. Corbett covers virtually every aspect of sentence structure and language use in this gem. He is an inspiring writer and his ideas have really livened up the start of literacy lessons in my year 5 class.
Highly recommended!
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List Price: £10.99
Our Price: £6.58
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Author:
Maryanne Wolf
By
Icon Books Ltd
Literary, Historical, Biological, Cognitive, and Futurist Insights into Reading, Creativity, and Brain Development, 2007-10-05
I was attracted to this book by the title: What could Proust and a Squid have in common? As it turned out, squids make only two cameo appearances in the book on pages 5-6 and 226 (probably to justify the title in references to the early use of squids in neuroscience studies and for conjecture about passing along genetic traits that make survival more difficult), but Proust in pretty mainstream throughout the book as a resource and reference for describing the richness that reading can bring to individual experience.
Professor Wolf has written a multidisciplinary book that is mind-boggling in its breadth. You'll learn everything from how writing and alphabets developed to why Socrates disfavored reading to how mental processes vary among dyslexics who are reading different languages to the best ways for diagnosing and overcoming reading difficulties.
Yet unlike most multidisciplinary books, this one is very brief and compact. But that compactness is misleading; Proust and the Squid is a challenging book to read and contemplate. Only good readers with a lot of background in literature and neuroscience can probably grasp this book. What's more, there are vast numbers of references that you can pursue if you want to know more.
The writing style makes the book denser than it needed to be. Professor Wolf makes matters worse for lay readers by insisting on the correct scientific names throughout, when the ordinary names would have made the material easier to grasp. As a result, at times you'll feel like you are taking a course in disciplinary vocabulary. At other times, Professor Wolf engages in a penchant for long, abstract sentences: "What is historically humbling about Sumerian writing and pedagogy is not their understanding of morphological principles, but their realization that the teaching of reading must begin with explicit attention to the principles characteristics of oral language." This sentence could be rewritten as "Most impressively, Sumerians developed a written language that made reading easier to learn by visually reproducing what was spoken." Obviously, her rendition is more creative . . . but I like mine better.
Here is what was new to me: Reading involves complex mental processes that are not natural to the brain's earliest functions. As a result, new neural connections need to be developed in the right order if someone is to be a good reader. Various brain scan tests have illuminated this finding and those neural pathways are well illustrated and described in this book. But there are different ways that those neural connections can be made, some of which will make reading difficult.
The book's strength is in providing you with a sense of how humans learned how to develop written language and read it rapidly . . . and gain greatly from reading. The book also is good in the area of making the case for those who can't read aren't deficient, rather than are different in ways that offer other potential advantages such as creativity. If someone in your family doesn't read well, you'll love that part of the message.
Where I thought the book was weakest was in worrying about the implications of highly condensed (and possibly inaccurate) online information substituting for traditional reading of books and articles. To me, it seemed like much ado about nothing. Human curiosity will always drive forward learning, something that Professor Wolf doesn't address. Provide that curiosity with more tools and resources, and more learning will take place. Here's an example. Today I was finishing my proofreading of my latest book. In the past, I had researchers diligently check each quotation for accuracy and source. Inevitably, there would be mistakes that weren't caught and made it into my books. By using the internet to crosscheck the sources this time, I was able to do the task much better and in less time . . . correcting many mistakes in the reference sources in my library. Having had this experience, I'll probably do more seeking of quotations directly from the internet in the future . . . and that will probably improve the quality of my quotations.
Bravo, Professor Wolf!
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List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.82
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Author:
Jeremy Butterfield
By
OUP Oxford
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List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £5.95
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Author:
Jean-Marie Cassagne,
Luc Nisset
By
McGraw-Hill Contemporary
A fun way to improve understanding of the French language, 2001-03-07
This book is a fun,entertaining book that helps learners of the language grasp colloquialisms that they wouldn't understand otherwise e.g.-(to fall into apples)means to faint!The idiom is given in a conversation to help understand what context it should be used in and these conversations are translated at the back of the book.But the best thing about this book are the comical drawings that illustrate each idiom.This gives the impression that the book has a more lighthearted approach to understanding and teaching French.A refreshing book for those wanting to speak more like a native or those who just want a more enjoyable way to improve their French.
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List Price: £3.99
Our Price: £0.63
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Author:
Susan M. Lloyd,
Sara Wernham
By
Jolly Learning Ltd
jolly phonic workbooks, 2004-11-22
Brilliant help for my little boy who uses jolly phonics at school and was struggling a little. Im sure u would agree that help at home goes a long way and these books do just the trick.
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List Price: £1.99
Our Price: £0.01
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Author:
Dorothy Richmond
By
McGraw-Hill Contemporary
clear and practical help for the student of spanish, 2008-06-08
In support of the many enthusiastic reviews of this book, I must agree that this is one of the clearest and easiest to understand guides to spanish verbs avaialble. As a very keen student of spanish I have an extensive collection of relevant books, but the Practice Makes Perfect series are refreshingly easy and pleasant to use. The grammar is divided into distinct sections with plenty of explanations, examples and exercises for practice, as well as answers for checking. There are also exercises in the writing of short passages which incorporate the verb conjugations learnt and introduce much new and useful vocabulary. This is a very useful book, not only for learners who attend classes and who would like a little more clarification, but especially for those trying to teach themselves. The relatively large size of print and good layout also enhance the pleasure of using this book.
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List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £4.24
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Author:
Derek Swetnam
By
How To Books Ltd
very helpful and it's in plain english, 2005-04-18
I bought this book alongside with other books on writing dissertations. I found this the most useful and helpful of the lot as it was written in a clear logical way that i could understand, there were no fancy words, complicated issues etc. Throughout my dissertation it has provided me with guidance on what to write in certain sections of my work, not only that it has provided me with the structure of what a dissertation should look like. Overall it has kept me sane and I would definately recommend it to people who are undertaking a dissertation, plus it is at a reasonable price too.
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List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £4.00
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Author:
Annie Kubler
By
Child's Play (International) Ltd
All you need to begin with ..., 2006-09-10
For just under £5 this book gives you everything you need to start signing with your baby. It is quite a large board book and has drawn pictures of babies doing the signs in it. Next to the picture are written instructions on the movements necessary. I can only recommend it.
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List Price: £4.99
Our Price: £1.74
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