Review: All About Homophones (by Marie Rippel)
Homophones (do you remember what those are from your elementary school days?) are words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. Do you ever get a bit mixed up when writing something, and find that you need to stop and think for a minute, “Hey, should I use “too”, “to”, or “two” here? Or how about “there", "their" or "they’re"?
Those are examples of homophones: words that look completely different from each other but sound the same when pronouncing them.
I know that adults confuse homophones all the time, after seeing mixups on emails, blogs, advertisements, and even the newspaper, occasionally. I’m sure that I goof up on them once in a blue moon.
Now that I think about it, I remember once when I was teaching in the public schools and was particularly exhausted one night toward the end of a school year. I was paying the bills (back in my single days – I’m relieved from that task since I’ve been married), and I had the habit of writing on the portion of the bill that I would file away, "Paid in full" and also include the date and the check #, in case I needed to look back in reference if there was a question on whether or not I had paid that bill. Well, I looked down after writing that on one particular bill, and I realized all of a sudden that I had written, "Paid in FOOL!" Oh, did I have a good laugh, even if it was midnight! That’s when I realized how tired I had become…so I put the bills away for the night and went to bed!
Those are examples of homophones: words that look completely different from each other but sound the same when pronouncing them.
I know that adults confuse homophones all the time, after seeing mixups on emails, blogs, advertisements, and even the newspaper, occasionally. I’m sure that I goof up on them once in a blue moon.
Now that I think about it, I remember once when I was teaching in the public schools and was particularly exhausted one night toward the end of a school year. I was paying the bills (back in my single days – I’m relieved from that task since I’ve been married), and I had the habit of writing on the portion of the bill that I would file away, "Paid in full" and also include the date and the check #, in case I needed to look back in reference if there was a question on whether or not I had paid that bill. Well, I looked down after writing that on one particular bill, and I realized all of a sudden that I had written, "Paid in FOOL!" Oh, did I have a good laugh, even if it was midnight! That’s when I realized how tired I had become…so I put the bills away for the night and went to bed!
All About Homophones is a 250-page book written by Marie Rippel, published in January 2009. You may be familiar with her All About Spelling, which I haven’t used.
All About Homophones has its own site at http://all-about-homophones.com
All About Homophones has several components to it that makes it useful in educating your children at home, or using it in the classroom setting. It includes homophone games, activity cards, directions to create your own homophone notebook, graphic organizers, worksheets, crossword puzzles, and games including puns and riddles for fun!
All About Homophones has its own site at http://all-about-homophones.com
All About Homophones has several components to it that makes it useful in educating your children at home, or using it in the classroom setting. It includes homophone games, activity cards, directions to create your own homophone notebook, graphic organizers, worksheets, crossword puzzles, and games including puns and riddles for fun!
FREE online Homophone Machine!
Be sure to check out the FREE online Homophone Machine at http://all-about-homophones.com/homophone-machine.phpYou may also view sample pages here: http://www.all-about-homophones.com/VCAB/
Want to have some fun with homophone games? Look here:
http://www.all-about-homophones.com/games-for-teaching-homophones.html
Because of the in-depth spelling and reading program our family has used for the last six years, my girls knew all of these homophones already. However, they still had fun using this e-book as a review of homophones. Instead of printing the pages out – which would greatly add to the cost of the curriculum – I made a one-page answer sheet that included all of the grade levels. The girls would just open up the e-book, scroll down to the specific pages they were to work on that day, and write their (there/they’re) answers on the answer sheet I made.
Instead of needing to print out about 113 pages per child, I only printed out two copies of the answer sheet I developed. Wow – what a saver on ink and paper! This was an e-book that was fun and easy to use! (I don’t say that about every e-book I come across.) Anyway, the girls enjoyed working through the e-book. All About Homophones is a product that is extremely easy to implement, is very user-friendly, and is an excellent teaching tool or review for children.
Here is a visual sample of one of the workbook pages:
DISCLOSURE: While I will never be paid to write a product review (gasp!), I did accept a free copy of All About Homophones for me to use in our home and then write an unbiased review.
