FarrBooks

Get Ahead in Grammar

Authors: Anne Quill and Anne Townsend

This book is a ready reference tool to help students understand the rules that are needed for the correct use of English grammar within the context of various text types. Students are introduced to grammar initially from an overall text level and then more micro levels are explored:

Grammar at the text level

Grammar at the sentence level

Grammar at the clause level

Grammar at the phrase level

Grammar at the word level

The guide is organised in a double page spread format. One page outlines each grammar point under the following headings: definition, types, contexts, structure and examples; the second page highlights the use of the same grammar point in a longer text. Key concepts and relationships are highlighted by coloured arrows, circles, balloons etc. Various types of text are used throughout the guide. This presentation provides the scaffolding and modelling necessary for the development of writing skills.

Get ahead in grammar: a practical guide for students has been written by two experienced classroom teachers and provides teachers, parents and students with a unique tool to improve writing skills. The guide is suitable for all students from upper primary school to post-secondary school including ESL students.

• Get Ahead in Grammar: Table of Contents
• Get Ahead in Grammar: Sample Pages

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Punctuation and Grammar

This series of blackline masters provides intensive practice in basic English grammar and punctuation. Features of each title include:

• each page contains a variety of activities focusing on one specific area e.g. the use of commas, past tense
• the degree of difficulty and complexity of the activities increases from Book 1 to Book 4
• the activities can be used for revision or reinforcement or to address knowledge gaps for individual students, small groups or whole classes
• blackline master format allowing photocopying for classroom use.

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HIV and Me

Author: Steve Lambert

Illustrator: Matt Tesch

HIV and me presents the facts about HIV and AIDS in easy to understand language for early adolescents. Using colourful, quirky drawings, the book informs readers of all ages about the complex topics of HIV and AIDS and their prevention.

This version of the book has been produced for the Pacific / Papua New Guinea market. However, translations of the text and drawings tailored to other markets can be produced on request. Please contact the publishers for further details.

Tok Pisin version now available. Contact FarrBooks for details.

Click here for more information...

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Learning to Listen Books 1 to 3

Learning to Listen Books 1-3 are useful resources for developing listening and concentration skills for primary students.

The high-interest and appealing stories in each book are accompanied by listening comprehension and creative expression exercises. After listening to each story, students can complete the listening comprehension activities related to it and/or the creative expression exercises to develop the theme of the story further.

Learning to Listen Books 1-3 can also be used in a variety of ways:

Learning to Listen Books 1-3 are blackline masters which can be copied according to the copyright guidelines below.

Click here to view some sample PDFs of these books.

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Department Store Maths

Author: Nancy Mills

Menu Maths

Author: Nancy Mills

Supermarket Maths

Author: Nancy Mills

This set of blackline masters provides intensive practice in basic mathematics for a range of students. The activities can be used for revision, assessment or reinforcement and can be completed by individual students, small groups or a whole class. The activities relate to everday life and the experiences of most students and therefore provide concrete contexts for arithmetic and other mathematical problems. Blackline master format allows photocopying for classroom use.

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Fast Number Facts

Authors: Helen Maden and Jane Lambert

This series of blackline masters provides intensive practice in arithmetical tables for students of all ages. The activities can be used for revision, assessment or reinforcement and can be completed by individual students, small groups or a whole class. Blackline master format allows photocopying for classroom use.

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Mental Arithmetic

This series of blackline masters provides intensive practice in basic arithmetic for students of all ages. The activities can be used for revision, assessment or reinforcement and can be completed by individual students, small groups or a whole class. The activities relate to everday life and the experiences of most students and therefore provide concrete contexts for arithmetical problems. Blackline master format allows photocopying for classroom use.

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Getting Started in Reading (ages 5-7)
and Moving On with Reading (ages 5-7)

Author: Ruth Mitchell

When children start reading, they grapple with a complex decoding process at the early stages. Pictures and known language patterns give contextual clues as starting readers struggle to make sense of print. Some words, however, just have to be learnt for instant recognition, as contextual clues are often of little use in deciphering meaning. These are the basic sight words such as the, it, to, and my; words that are difficult to illustrate graphically though they have a high frequency rate in basic texts.

In Getting Started in Reading, the basic 20 emergent sight words are divided into four graded groups. Exercises practise and repractise the words in each group, using active learning methods to give children frequent exposure to the words so that gradually instant recognition is established. With these 20 extremely important words in place, progress through early reading becomes much easier.

The second graded blackline master resource book, Moving On with Reading, introduces an additional ten sets of graded sight words which are introduced in a similar manner to the first book, but which gradually involve the words more and more into a reading for comprehension approach.

Getting Started and Moving On with Reading: Sample Pages

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Junior Reading Skills

Author: Geoff Frolich

This set of graded blackline masters has been widely used by teachers to introduce and practise the vocabulary and basic phonetic and grammar skills that children are exposed to at each stage of early reading, regardless of junior readers used.

The books are well laid out offering useful support for:

• students working independently
• parent supervised groups
• teacher-aide supervised individuals/groups
• teacher-led shared activity within the reading program.

Each book practises reading and reinforces early vocabulary and also focuses on phonetic and grammar skills in a progressive developmental order. For example, Books 1 and 2 highlight initial sounds, while Books 3 and 4 focus on long and short vowel sounds. Punctuation marks, silent letters, digraphs, contractions, compound words, synonyms, antonyms etc. are also explored.

These books are an essential supplemental teaching resource for every junior reading department.

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Learn Basic Sight Words Book 1 & 2

Author: Dayle Smith

It is hard to overstate the importance of a good start in learning to read and of learning and retaining the basic sight words to the level of instant recognition. For some children this comes naturally, but for many, regular refreshment is necessary to retain the basic sight word shapes in memory, until they become second-nature.

These graded blackline master resource books uses large and small motor activities and sentence reading and writing activities with contextual clues to introduce 24 basic sight words. The activities that explore each word are repeated, so that independence is quickly achieved. The reinforcement activities will keep the basic sight words fresh in the minds of slower starters as well as subtly beginning to teach some word attack and spelling strategies. Activities build into a book that children can use as an independent reading resource.

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Mastering Vowels

Author: Ruth Mitchell

Mastering Vowels is a varied, activity-based blackline master resource that offers a broad range of practice activities for teaching students a sound-to-symbol system for recognising and sounding vowels; an important core as a base for decoding unknown words as well as for spelling.

Written and developed over many years of teaching and widely used with a variety of students including slow-to-progress readers and students whose first language is not English, its mix of teaching strategies, games and worksheets offers a strong support base for the teacher to build on.

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Reading Reinforcement Games

Author: Kristy McLean

All teachers recognise that children within a class are at varying levels and there is a need to provide worthwhile activities for independent work for some students while the teacher works with other children. These books address this need. The two blackline master books, Reading Reinforcement Games Book 1 and 2, each contain a broad variety of games at ascending levels of difficulty. The vocabulary used in the games increases in complexity and is drawn from the range of junior reading series.

The games can be copied onto light card and cut up to provide a broad range of games that can be easily replaced when necessary. The simplicity of the rules and challenges in each game make them very quick for the teacher to explain and easy for children to learn.

These resources give children the opportunity to practise word recognition and reading skills in a simple and enjoyable way.

Reading Reinforcement Games: Sample Pages.

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Reading/Listening Comprehension Skills
and Developing Reading Confidence

Authors: Michelle Osment (Reading / Listening Comprehension Skills), Allie Lundon (Developing Reading Confidence)

An important part of the role of developing and reinforcing early reading skills is to ensure that children clock up some reading mileage. By this, we mean that children must do a lot of reading to practise the skills over and over. Rhyme in poetry is an important support in assisting emerging readers to gain this kind of reading habit as it adds another contextual support structure to the text. As children get to know and love poems they naturally enjoy reading them over and over again which assists in establishing the pattern of extensive and frequent reading.

Each of the books pictured here uses rhyme to further develop junior reading.

Reading/Listening Comprehension Skills offers 28 modern rhymes, each followed by a comprehension and word study page so that the poems are used for teaching points as well as for mileage reading.

Developing Reading Confidence Book 1 and Book 2 contain a broad mix of rhymes that together cover many topics, introducing new interest areas that can develop a broader language base and can be used as part of a theme study, while remaining highly suited to reading mileage development. The material is presented with clear teaching instructions on how to share the poems as a class or in groups, making the accomplishment of reading mileage a fun activity that children enjoy.

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Reading Words from the Classroom
and Reading Words from the Community

Author: Anne Smith

As children start to integrate their reading and writing, many of the topics they will want to write and then read about include things they encounter in the classroom and their own environment.

These two books allow children to readily learn the names (nouns) relevant to these contexts in simple ways. The completed pages can be collected into a folder or scrapbook which forms a useful dictionary of nouns. The dictionary allows children to easily find words they need for their writing, while also providing an opportunity for further reading mileage as children regularly revisit the pages.

The material is presented very clearly in a well-organised and attractively illustrated format.

Developed for use in a variety of settings these books are also an excellent resource for ESL speakers of different ages.

Reading Words from the Classroom and Community: Sample Pages.

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Spelling Through Phonics Books 1 to 3 and Teacher Resource Book

This set of spelling books is an exciting and innovative series for the first three years of schooling. The series develops phonological skills ranging from letter/sound relationships to the most commonly used rime families which make up most of the words children use in their early writing.

Workbook pages are presented in a spacious and attractive layout and consist of engaging activities that allow children to explore and practise decoding skills. Each unit focuses on the sound, onset and rime family, using illustrations which allow the student to interact with the activities in a fun way.

Other features:

This series is supported by Spelling Through Phonics Teacher Resource Book which offers a complete resource that includes over 35 reproducible BLMs to help children connect sound and analogy to written symbols and develop spelling skills.
Spelling Through Phonics Teacher Resource Book gives a clear introduction to the teaching strategies that underpin the Spelling Through Phonics 1 - 3 workbooks. It is a complete resource book that includes over 35 reproducible BLMs to help children connect sound and analogy to written symbols and develop spelling skills.

This resource book:

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Text Types: a writing guide for students

Authors: Anne Townsend, Anne Quill and Philip Oostenbroek.

Text Types: a writing guide for students provides a clear reference tool for students, teachers and parents to understand 21 different types of written texts, both literary and factual.

An easy-to-use double-page format presents an analysis of the structure of the text type together with an example of the text type.

The structure is analyzed under the following headings:

A. Purpose
B. Types
C. Context

• Subject matter
• Roles and relationships of writers and readers.
• Medium
• Mode

D. Text: How to write the text

• Structure
• Vocabulary
• Grammar

The examples provide clear guidelines on how to write the texts. Each example aims to provide the necessary scaffolding and modeling to assist in the development of writing skills.

Text Types: a writing guide for students has been written by three experienced teachers and is a unique tool for use by students from middle primary to secondary school.

Text Types: Sample Pages

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