Category: 11 plus creative writing

Paperback books or digital books – which is better for your child’s learning?

Your decision to choose a digital or paperback version of a teaching and learning book depends on:

  1. What you plan to do with it.
  2. Where you’re doing the learning.
  3. How your home is set up.
  4. The possibility of buying a bundle of both versions, if the discount is massive.

Why you should love digital versions

With printing-enabled ebooks – all 11plushappy guides have printing ability – you can print out one essay at a time, multiple times. You and your child can write all over it and annotate it with notes to help you learn. For example, find and underline all the verbs, find all the similes, circle any writing imagery you want to magpie, and so on.

Because you’re printing this on paper, it’s great to get a pencil and paper learning session going. If it goes wrong, or even if it goes right, but the pages get crinkled or torn, you can print the chapter again! Nothing wasted. Likewise, take a chapter to a cafe, out to the park, or have a picnic in your garden, and you can easily create a Learning Cafe, where your child can relax and learn almost invisibly while slurping up a milkshake.

Another advantage is if you make a copy and store it on a drive or in the cloud, you can’t lose the book! Ever! You can take it on holiday, in the car, on the plane, without needing to worry about losing or damaging that one paperback copy you have; a real book is, after all, pretty much a living breathing thing deserving as much love as a pet!

Being able to print out sections also gives you the same advantage as a paperback book – you and your child don’t have to look at it on a screen all, or even any, of the time.

So when you buy a digital book, you’re really buying many copies of it to work on. True, a book can be photocopied, but you need a photocopier, and it takes a lot of time. An ebook printout is press and go. Helpful if you have two kids and want to use the same resource, all clean, or if you want to revisit the learning afresh with your child. I know there are copyright issues here, but I’m realistic. I know you’re going to print it out and make an extra copy. I want you to. You buy non-fiction books as tools to build something greater – your child’s learning and exam success.

Why you should love paperback versions

Well, it’s a book. Paper is going to be better for your eyes, A precious living thing, as we’ve mentioned. Something to look wonderful on your table, to pull out of a school bag, to take with you wherever you do your learning. A book is stronger than a print out, and will resist a lot of use. It can survive coffee, juice spillages, sticky fingers, even the beach.

It’s not digital and it’s better for your eyes. A book doesn’t run out of batteries. You don’t need any device to access a book. It’s there in your hands, in your life, immediately.

A real book on a shelf or on a table? Surely, one of the most beautiful, empowering sights in the world!

A paperback book teaches your child to hold books and work with them. You will help your child see books as a real alternative to phones, screens, videos, etc.

You can still write all over a book. ALL my non-fiction books are covered with notes, in pencil, pen and highlighters. You can use it as a tool and accept it’s going to get dirty. It’s fine; this is your child’s own copy. They will feel proud to have a possession they can personalise with names, stickers, colouring pens, post-it markers and their own handwriting.

Physical books make fantastic gifts, helping relatives to support families and grandchildren, nephews and nieces. There’s the thrill of the postbox, the delivery.

The main downside of a book is the risk it gets lost or damaged. You can’t make another copy. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Admittedly, though, this doesn’t happen too often.

I hope these thoughts help you decide which is right. 11plushappy guides are available in digital and paperback formats, so you are looked after whatever you prefer. But hold on…I’ve had an idea.

What if you could own both and make a huge saving?

What if there was a third way? What if, like me, you don’t want to choose? In a perfect world, you could have a digital and a paperback, right? But it would be too expensive and a waste of money to buy two versions of the same book, right? I thought the same, so I decided to create a double bundle of a digital and a paperback version of the guides at a £20 discount. Yey! Now you can choose not to choose. Now, you and your child can learn with a digital AND a paperback book.

£30 gets you both book formats, giving you all of above benefits. (That’s only £5 for the second book.) You’ll download your digital copy immediately, and receive your paperback in the post. Oh, and I pay for the postage, so that’s free to you.

Visit the http://www.11plushappy.com bookstore to start learning today.

I really hope this reading helps you decide. I’m really happy that I can now offer you three ways to help your child stay 11 plus happy!

Have a beautiful week of teaching and learning.

Lee, London

What has 6 faces and is an amazing teacher?

Quick 11+ game of the day. Grab a dice, grab a targeted vocabulary list from the net, print it out, and BOOM, you have a game board. Write a sentence with each word you land on. Don't know the meaning of the word? Excellent. Look it up and you're both learning new words that can be a part of your child's next story.

DICE

A pair of fantastic teachers!

Who can reach the end of the list first?

Who can reach the furthest in 11 minutes? 

Play with one or two dice. Throw a double? Make up a rule: go backwards, steal your opponent's word, write a sentence with two words from the list...anything you can think of. 

In short bursts, in cafes, under the table, between sessions when your child is tiring...dice turn learning into fun. A bonus? They're not electronic! Just you, your child, the dice, fun and learning. 

Please share how your game turned out at leemottram@11plushappy.com

You'll find a whole chapter dedicated to dice in the brand new parent and child guide, Teach Your Little Genius to Pass 11 Plus Creative Writing Exams. Yey!

Help Your Child Practise Story Continuation With Something You Already have In Your House…

9 story continuation tips for 11 plus entrance tests

We know story continuation is a popular choice for independent school 11plus exams, so let’s give your child as much help as we can. In the last post, you looked at a video guiding you through 9 vital, mini ‘must-haves’ of story continuation. I include the video again here, but now also wish to point you to a fantastic way to practise this with something you already have in your house.

Of course, you’ll be using sample exam papers from a range of resources, with story extracts and instructions to continue the story in a range of ways. Doubtless, these are excellent support. BUT…there’s another fantastic tool; the secret sauce – or secret source – you already have in your house.

BOOKS.

  1. Take a book you or your child already have on your bookshelf. Depending on the stage or age of your child, vary between simpler and more complex writing.
  2. Open the book and choose a page or two for you both to read. Chapter endings with mini-cliffhangers work well, as do chapter starters, but really, any 2 pages with a scene that can be developed will work.
  3. Point to the sentence you’d like your child to continue from: the moment a door is knocked; when a character is found out doing something they shouldn’t; the beginning of a difficult conversation; the moment a question is asked, and so on.
  4. Decide a focus for the piece. For example: ‘Continue Nirvana’s journey up the mountain as night falls’; ‘Write what happens when Arthur opens the magic cloud. Try to continue in the same style as the author.’
  5. Decide how long you want the writing to be and the time given to write it.
  6. Ask your child (you could model this with them the first couple of times) to read the text and search out the 9 elements shown in the Whizz-Bang story continuation rockets video.
  7. Repeat with a range of books. If you choose a mix of classic old children’s books alongside modern texts, the added advantage is your child will be trying to write in the same style as some of the most successful and brilliant authors. This will help them understand writers’ techniques, and should also improve their own writing style as they try out different sentence structures, word choices, paragraph techniques, etc.

Books are teachers (metaphor!).

Happy Writing!

Lee, London