Welcome to the second instalment of the literacy initiative run by English teacher Sarah Ward over the next few weeks. It’s mainly for Y10 students sitting the NCEA Literacy Corequisite next term, but other students might find it helpful too.
TIP 1 – Homophones
This time, we’re focusing on homophones – words that sound the same but are spelt differently and mean completely different things, like ‘two’, ‘to’ and ‘too’.
- ‘She needed new football boots, so she bought a new pear.’
- ‘Put your waistin the bin.’
- “The priest had chewing gum stuck to his soul.”
- ‘We used flowerand water to make bread.’
- ‘The teacher got coffee all over his genes‘.
TIP 2 – Homophones AND Apostrophes.
Many people struggle with these ones. They are still homophones (words that sound the same but mean different things), but they have the added complication of apostrophes…
For example:
There/their/they’re.
Your/you’re.
It’s/its.
It’s easy to write the wrong homophone if your brain is out of gear, so remind your kids to focus on these because:
- ideas lose power when written inaccurately,
- it looks sloppy and like the writer doesn’t care about paying attention to detail,
- and last but not least, in an assessment situation, a homophone fault equals an instant penalty!
Reckon your child is all over this? Here’s a quick quiz.
They’re going over their to get there hats. Mr Brown said that your going to have to go over there to get you’re hat, too. But why can’t they bring your hat with them when their already over there getting there’s? That way, you would save a trip. You would have time to finish your work, to.
