Help Your Secondary School Children Improve Their Language Skills
1. Improve your kids vocabulary
Effective vocabulary instruction should accomplish the following:
a) increase reading comprehension
b) develop knowledge of new concepts
c) improve range and specificity in writing
d) help students communicate more effectively
e) develop deeper understanding of words and concepts
We are making worksheets to improve all areas of vocabulary building

2. Improve your kids grammar
We have worksheets to improve the use of the right tenses and many other areas of grammar

3. Improve Understanding of Narrative and Expository Texts
Literature can be a rich source of language and culture. Besides understanding narrative text, it is important to understand exposatory text.

Students encounter expository text in the essays, textbooks, editorials, articles, reports and manuals that they read. The main strategies for reading expository text involve breaking that text down into smaller pieces, using illustrations and other context clues that may exist, group discussion of the text, and teaching specific paragraph structures that are found in expository text.

Reading A-Z has books and worksheets that can be of help. We have literature and expository worksheets to help as well

4. Academic Writing
In secondary school, students encounter many forms of academic writing: essays, research papers, creative writing, etc. For low-literacy students, you should begin by focusing on the meaning of the writing, then move on to mechanics. At school teachers tend to put more emphasis on vocabulary and grammar rather than specific knowledge and critical thinking skills particular to a content area.

Here you will find grammar and vocabulary worksheets, write prompts and other worksheets to improve academic writing

Grammar Worksheets
On this place you will get worksheets to practise grammar on a Secondary School Level
The worksheets will be about these subjects:
• To be
• To have
• Articles: A, An,
• Simple present tense
• Simple past tense
• Simple future tense
• Will/Be going to
• Present progressive/continuous tense
• Past progressive/continuous tense
• Future progressive/continuous tense
• Present perfect tense
• Past perfect tense
• Future perfect tense
• Present perfect progressive/continuous tense
• Past perfect progressive/continuous tense
• Future perfect progressive/continuous tense
• Imperative
• Modals (auxiliary verbs)
• The passive voice
• Question words
• Asking /Answering questions
• Possessive ending
• Plural form (nouns)
• Adjectives and adverbs
• Possessive adjective
• There is - there are
• Personnal pronouns
• Possessive
• Reflexive pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Relative pronouns
• Much - many - few - little - some - any - no
• Prepositions
• Comparisons/superlative
• Capitalisation
• Gerunds/infinitives
• Direct/indirect speach
• Connecting words
• Phrasal verbs (Idioms)

Vocabulary
Why Teach Vocabulary?
Vocabulary is one of the five pillars of reading comprehension. Reading comprehension depends upon the meaning readers give words. The more vocabulary words your child knows, the better he or she will be able to comprehend.

A large vocabulary opens your child up to a wider range of reading materials. A rich vocabulary also improves your teens' ability to communicate through speaking, listening, and writing.

Researchers have stated that vocabulary deficiencies are a primary cause of academic failure. These researchers claim that direct and explicit instruction of a set number of vocabulary words will improve academic success in all areas.

Other research suggest that teaching students 350 words each year may improve learning by as much as 10 to 30%.

It has be found also that students who were given direct instruction in word meanings were better able to discern the meanings of untaught words than control subjects.

For these reasons, that I am working on making several worksheets that focuses on teaching words, and in that way, improve your kids vocabulary in an effective and pleasant way.

Write Prompts
A Write Prompt gives you directions about what you are going to write. Whenever someone asks us to write something we are writing to a prompt.
On this place I am going to place several write prompts so your teen can practise writing narrative and expository text triggered by a write prompt.

Some advise on writing on a prompt:
1) Before writing make sure that you do what you have been asked. So first read the prompt all the way through.

2) After reading the prompt take a minute to make sure you understand what you are being asked to write about.
• Do you have a choice about what you are going to write about?
• Are you being asked to describe something?
• Are you being asked to tell a story?
• Other?

3) Follow the writing process while writing to the prompt.

This means:

a) Write down the ideas you will need to develop your text and list them in the sequence you will write about them. (Prewriting)

b) After you have decided what you are supposed to write, use the prompt to help you write an opening sentence about your topic and build on that good opening sentence

Now get your main ideas written down in a sequence that makes sense, and write a good paragraph that helps readers understand what you are trying to communicate. (Writing/Drafting)

c) Then go back to your draft and add descriptive language that enhances your voice and helps accomplish what the prompt required. (Revising)

d) Correct your punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar (Editing)

Reading Comprehension
What is reading comprehension?
Reading comprehension is the process of understanding and constructing meaning from a piece of text.

Connected text is any written material involving multiple words that forms coherent thoughts. Phrases, sentences, paragraphs and so on are examples of connected text that can be read with comprehension.

Reading difficulties become most apparent when the student is unable to grasp the meaning from a text passage.

Reading comprehension may be affected by the difficulty of the text, the vocabulary words used in the text, and the student's familiarity with the subject matter, among other factors.

What are the thinking strategies that all proficient readers use as they read?
1) Determining what is important and diminishing focus on less important ideas or pieces of information
2) Combining background knowledge and textual information to draw conclusions and interpret facts
3) Building on previous knowledge and experiences to aid in comprehension of the text
4) Wondering and inquiring about the book before, during, and after reading
5) Using an inner voice to think about if the text makes sense or not
6) Implementing the five senses to build images in the mind that enhance the experience of reading

To practise reading comprehension I am going to use Oliver Twist by Mark Twain. (This books is the public domain right now) I am preparing several worksheets to help your child read, understand and think about what he or she has read.