I have been planning lessons for the UK National Tutoring Programme which has been put in place to help students catch up with some of the curriculum content they may have missed due to Covid19. For one cohort of students my focus is on spelling.
Homophones feature prominently in the UK spelling guidance, (see link below), beginning in Year 2 and continuing through to Years 5 and 6 (age 10-11). They can be very confusing, so I decided to look into how to support students with learning them.
What is a Homophone?
The word homophone comes from two Greek words that have been put together – homo meaning ‘same and and phone meaning ‘sound’. Put simply, they words that sound the same, but with different meanings and spellings.
While there are many pairs of homophones, there are some with multiple words, for example, the commonly confused to, two and too.
 What did one homophone say to comfort the other homophone?
Their, there, they’re.
Resource Development
I was really inspired by the wonderful images created by Bruce Holden in his blog, Homophones, Weakly and had so much fun creating my own pairs of images in a similar style. As I wanted to use the images to engage children, I added the jigsaw element and bright colours then created versions without words for quiz activities.
Resource Aims:
- To engage children and make learning fun
- To succeed in helping children with spelling
To make lessons enjoyable, they use quiz and games formats. Homophones are also great for incorporating humour in the form of jokes, riddles and tongue twisters. To give children the tools to support spelling, I built in mnemonic activities.
Mnemonics
A mnemonic is a tool for remembering. There are lots of these for spelling including acrostics, small words in big words, rules and so on.
Creating a visual image can help with recall. As well as sharing mnemonics, creating them is a powerful way to fix them in the mind.
Resource Packs by Teachers Telling Tales
Pairs or Pears Homophone Games
Cards with pictures only, words only and both pictures and words by Teachers Telling Tales.
Colour, black and white and ink saving versions featuring 40 words.
Which Witch Homophones Quiz
As I had created twenty pairs of images, I decided to split these into two quiz presentations so it would not be too long for students. There are two versions of the presentation:
Annotate, with just pictures. This is more challenging for spelling!
Label, where words are provided and can be dragged to the correct picture.
The introduction is tongue twisters and the activity at the end is to create a mnemonic.
You can purchase both resources together at a discount, available from Teachers Telling Tales online stores at:
Teachers Pay Teachers
TES
Useful Links:
UK Statutory Guidance publications
Homophone resources (lists, jokes, riddles, quizzes, flash cards, worksheets and more