English

Alphabetic Principle

Successful reading acquisition is dependent on the mastery of a number of simpler cognitive skills. The alphabetic principle is a fundamental requirement for learning read in an alphabetic writing system. Read more...

Betty Botter is a tongue-twister of unknown origin

Betty Botter Bought Some Better Butter... Read more...

Emergent Literacy

The period from birth until the time that children are formally taught to read and write conventionally is referred to as emergent literacy. In this period children learn many concepts useful for later literacy instruction. Read more...

English is Tough Stuff

This poem demonstrates how English appears to be an easy language, until you try to pronounce the words! Read more...

Glossary of Language Features and Poetic Terms

A useful glossary of language features and poetic terms ranging from alliteration to understatements Read more...

Parts of Speech - Nouns, Verbs & Adjectives

Every name is called a noun, as field and fountain, street and town. Read more...

Phonemes

A phoneme is the smallest sound unit in a spoken word, a change in which produces a change in the meaning of the word. Read more...

Phonics

Phonics refers to an instructional method for teaching children to read. Read more...

What is a palindrome?

A palindrome is a word or sentence that is the same spelled forward or backward. Read more...

What is an Idiom?

An idiom is a phrase or sentence in which the meaning of the whole sentence is different from what you would expect. Read more...

What is reading?

What do we mean by reading? Can we count viewing a traffic sign as reading, or examining the label of a Coca-Cola bottle? Read more...

Whole Language Reading Instruction

The whole-word method or whole-language approach uses real text for authentic reading and writing, and avoids looking at parts of written language for its own sake. Read more...

Maths

Clock Face

Do you know how four o'clock is shown on a clock face that uses Roman Numerals? Read more...

Fibonacci sequence

The Fibonacci sequence is a group of numbers that are a recursive sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... Read more...

How to square numbers ending in five

There is a great shortcut for squaring a number ending in 5. Read more...

Interesting names for numbers

How many in a baker's dozen? Read more...

Other People's Numbers

Do you know how old the oldest known written numerals are? Read more...

Perfect number

An integer is called a perfect number if it is equal to the sum of its positive factors, excluding the number itself. Read more...

Prime numbers

A prime number (often simply called a prime) is a natural number which can only be divided exactly by 1 and itself. An infinite number of prime numbers exist. Read more...

Rational Numbers

Do you know what a rational number is? Read more...

Square numbers

A square number (also known as a perfect square) is an integer that can be written as the product of an integer with itself. For example, 16 is a square number, since it can be written as 4 × 4 or 4². Read more...

What is a googol?

A googol is the large number 10¹⁰⁰, which is the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Read more...

What is a heptagon?

In geometry, a heptagon is a polygon with seven sides and seven angles. A regular heptagon has all seven sides the same length, and all angles the same. Read more...

Zeno's paradox

A man called Achilles challenges a tortoise to a race. Suppose Achilles can run ten times faster than the tortoise... Read more...