General Resources

An ESOL lesson embedding numeracy, diversity and British values, centred on the Spring Equinox and three festivals which happen around / on this day - Purim, Holi and Shunbun No Hi. Learners collect unfamiliar words on a vocabulary sheet and ask and answer questions to elicit meaning / explanation. There is a powerpoint to introduce the topic, using acronyms eg 7DIAW  - Seven Days In A Week to elicit key words, and lead to an explanation of what the Vernal Equinox is and when it is.

A set of Entry 1 and Entry 2 English tasks that focus on two short texts about the alphabetical list of winter storm names released by the Met Office. The first Functional English resource I have written based on the revised Functional Skills English content (2018) which will be used by awarding organisations from September 2019 [1]. 

An analysis of an Entry Level 3 (E3) Functional Skills reading text about Walter Tull, contributed by  Laura Bell (2018) - see right for the link to Laura's resource.

A simplified version of a newspaper article. The reading is followed by comprehension questions, a meaning match, a word find, and a scanning for correct spelling exercise. Developed for an adult student with Asperger’s, as well as dyslexia, who needs lots of motivation and exercises easy enough for him to be able to be successful without too much help.

Adapted from a Level 1 resource What happens to Ice Falling from planes
from Dave Norgate (2010).

This resource helps learners hear rhymes and recognise corresponding letters/digraphs, rimes and onsets etc. Take simple limericks and poems and get your learners to put them together.

I created my own limericks to match work we had been doing on long vowel sounds (it is not that difficult to do once you get started). Well-known poems and nursery rhymes also proved particularly popular as many knew them already by heart from childhood and some were doing them now with their children.

A multi-functional resource for Literacy or Numeracy. Sample TV listings by day, programme, start and end times, channel and genre. Use for alphabetic or numeric sorting, skimming and scanning exercises, literacy social sight vocabulary for days of the week, numeracy exercises for calculating time, etc. This resource contains some sample exercise questions to use which can be developed further according to need. I laminated the sheets and then cut up into days so lower level learners can move the elements around. Higher level learners can work from the whole page sheets as well.

Margaret Adams wrote this story to help a dyslexic student distinguish between ‘want’ and ‘what’. Numbered ‘cartoon’ blanks for student to illustrate, plus introduction, story and background notes.