I recently came across this series of workbooks for children and bought some for Dominic.  It is published by Hodder Children’s Books and is supposed to be the only home learning programme supported by the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associates in the UK.  The books are categorised by different age group and subjects.  For the age group of 4-5 years, for instance, there are workbooks on Reading, Writing and Numbers.  Of course, for older age group, there are more books for more subjects (e.g. Multiplications)

This series is based on the UK curriculum, but for supplementing our local home use for preschool level, it is still quite useful.  The things that I like about this series are :

1. They are fully coloured

This makes it more attractive to the child compared to most of the locally produced workbooks, which are in black and whie.

2. Attractive Illustrations

Illustrations are in attractive pictures and cute characters, again making them more interesting to the child.

3. Graduated Difficulty

The activities get more demanding gradually.  The first few pages cover the basics while the later activities are more difficult.  Hence, it is a more systematic approach to mastering the subject concerned.  E.g. for writing, before jumping into writing alphabets, the first few activities cover line tracing and pattern drawing. 

4. Star stickers Reward System

The books come with star stickers.  At the end of every activity, there is a space for you to stick a star as a reward.  On the back cover of the book are more star stickers and a progress chart.  As you go through the activites, you can stick a star next to the activities.  The progress chart serves to motivate the child and provide you with a useful checklist of skills covered in the book.

5. Simple Teaching Guide

This is the part I like best.  The skills taught or practised in each unit are stated clearly at the top of the page.  At the bottom of the page, there is a small note that tells you the objective of the activity and a few lines of simply teaching guide.  This is fantastic because I am not a teacher and not very good at teaching.  I like to have some kind of guide to tell me what I am supposed to do.  Most of the locally produced workbooks don’t come with such guide.  They don’t even tell you what is the purpose of the activities (e.g. I believe a lot of people do not know that line tracing is considered pre-writing skills).

6. School Words

The book is peppered with ‘school words’ throughout.  These are the words that your child is supposed to learn in school.  Ok, this may be in the UK context, but I find that they are still relevant to us.  E.g. under the age group of 4-5, school words are look, it, in, like, dog, etc.  The school words are clearly highlighted so you know what exactly to focus on.

7. Quality

I like the quality of the paper used.  This is a minor point, of course, but it adds to the overall enjoyment of the book.