FAQs
What are Tell & Spell ebooks?
The seven series in the Tell & Spell ebook range are designed around the concept or approach which BERGUS have developed called Building Word Awareness. The series of ebooks assist children, teenagers and adults to develop and foster a lifelong interest in words. Clues to words are presented in an interesting but challenging way which facilitates the learning of new vocabulary and with the aim to improve spelling ability. Essentially, one of the main aims is to provide users with a vocabulary test.
How does Building Word Awareness work?
Research by BERGUS found that children engaged with the learning process if they achieved some success initially. Children, teenagers and adults must feel that the information given is within their cognitive range. Throughout the ebook series common and uncommon words are introduced and arranged in 7 levels of difficulty. Ebooks provide the perfect learning aids for kids.
Success with the lower levels encourages and motivates people to take on the challenges of the higher levels. The Building Word Awareness process has four steps where information about a word is given and the person must guess the word and spell it correctly.
What are the four steps in the Building Word Awareness process?
1. Tells the description of the word – noun, adjective, adverb and so on. This assists in building awareness of the difference between words and using words in their proper context.
2. Tells the first letter, and how many letters the word contains. This helps to focus the mental search to within a specific range. It sets parameters and in the process a lot of other words are examined and recalled from memory.
3. Tells the meaning of the word and in this part of the process, wordpower is increased and a deeper understanding of words is developed. You must now guess the word.
4. Spell the word - the final step. Knowing how many letters in the word assists in the pupil arriving at the correct spelling.
What are the main objectives of Building Word Awareness?
The two main objectives of the series are to build vocabulary and improve spelling ability. The Building Word Awareness concept allows these objectives to be achieved in a fun and entertaining atmosphere where people are eager to engage and enjoy participating. It is also a very effective way to exercise your brain on a regular basis.
Who can benefits from the Building Word Awareness series of ebooks?
There are 7 graded levels in the series providing word challenges for children (as young as 4 years), teenagers and adults.
Who are the authors of the ebooks?
BERGUS is an educational company based in the county of Cork, Ireland. Professionals from the teaching and the speech and language therapy professions have contributed to developing the building word awareness concept, which is at the heart of the Tell & Spell series.