Author Description

Words Alive is based on the belief that spelling skills will improve if students have a growing interest in words and a better understanding of how words come about. Words Alive sets out to stimulate interest in language-in a fun and informative way. The material provides information on many word types, covering, for example, prefixes, suffixes, silent letters, Greek and Roman words, abbreviations, number words, names of people and places, compound words words from animals, and sporting words. Then it reinforces this by asking students to do an activity. The units are presented in copymaster format, allowing teachers total flexibility in their individual, class, remedial, and extension work, or even as a 'word study bank' with photocopied pages cut up into units, mounted on card and laminated, ready for independent student use. It is recommended that each classroom be equipped with at least one comprehensive dictionary, a thesaurus, a comprehensive atlas, and a telephone directory. Each unit deserves at least one lesson's attention, but many units will require more than one lesson to complete satisfactorily. Teachers will need to enlist the support of the school library, as some of the units require the use of etymological dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and other research materials. Many of the units lead into other curriculum areas, such as social studies, mathematics, science and music. Words Alive is a follow up to the Mind Your Language and Mind. Your Spelling series, and can be used with children between the ages of 7 and 14 years of age.