Synopsis
Photographs and simple text introduce homophones, words with different meanings that are spelled the same but sound different.
Marilyn Courtot - Children's Literature
In these nonfiction readers for kids, basic concepts that apply to both reading and writing are emphasized. In this offering in the series "Write on!" readers are introduced to homographs. Words that are spelled the same but sound different and have different meanings. Each spread has one page with one or more sentences and a picture to clearly demonstrate the concept. Each spread compares or contrasts the ways in which the words are used. For example for the word close, "The snack stand will close at six tonight" is paired with, "These good friends put their heads close together." The selections are interesting and will appeal to beginning readers and the kids depicted represent the diversity found in this country. The final text page asks the reader a question (The answer is provided.). All of the words found in the book are recapped in lists as to their appropriate part of speech (accompanied by definitions of noun, adjective, and verb), a pronunciation guide and the page number where the word appears. Also the phonetic pronunciation of the word pairs is found at the top of each page. A useful book for teachers and one that can broaden its reach across the curriculum. The books are leveled so the concepts are more complicated in the more advanced books. This one is in the Level 3 series. 2002, Sandcastle/ABDO, Ages 6 to 7.