Testimonials – General

Having seen a presentation by Sharona about the School Start Buddy, our Parents and Friends decided that this would be a perfect gift for new families that come into our school. The response from the students and parents has been extremely positive. Parents have commented on how much their child wants to use their new ‘buddy’ and how eager they are to explore the letters and sounds in the School Start Buddy. It is a perfect way for kids to begin to explore and develop early Literacy skills at home. The information and training involved on the web is also great for parents that may be unsure of how to use the buddy effectively and provides explicit but simple instructions about how to support their child in this exploration. We will be back for more!

I love all of it! I love learning the letters and making funny sentences.

I love playing with my 'toy' homework.

You can put words together and make words yourself. It is a fun way to learn and it has helped me figure out new words and sounds. You can draw in it and practice the alphabet

The School Start Buddy has helped my students who have poor fine-motor skills and are reluctant to write. The magnetic resources allow them to develop their letter recognition and early reading and writing skills without having the barrier of actually writing. When we do writing tasks, they are much more willing to ‘have-a-go’ on the whiteboard because they are able to quickly erase any errors they make.

School Start Buddy is brilliant. It has been a fantastic resource in helping my sons build the foundational skills in both reading and writing. My sons love the engaging and interactive activities and I love the quality time I get to spend with my boys, watching them grow and learn.

It has made homework a fun activity that has engaged our school-aged daughter, and also her younger sister who has been practicing her “writing.” It neatly packs away after each use which I appreciate, and I know it is ready for immediate use again next time. We have had fun creating new ways to learn words, sounds and sentences.

My boys love the hands-on approach of using magnetic letters to learn their weekly list of spelling words. I love the design of the case – it is easy for them to find the letters as they are clearly displayed

I learnt good strategies for teaching spelling. I would love to come to another workshop.

What are the key learning you will take away from this session? Too many to mention/list. Absolutely amazing, practical, engaging, skills build in routine way. JUST EXCELLENT!

This workshop was much better than I ever expected! I love the hands-on learning that gets all children involved in the learning.

Brilliant workshop! What a fun way to teach spelling rules. I have a student who is not remembering the spelling rules. This should help. I love the practical ideas for teaching reading, spelling and written language

This workshop showed me how to use the School Start Spelling Case with the Jolly Grammar handbook. This will help me start my career. The presenter was excellent!

This is a great extension of the Jolly Phonics program. Practical strategies and resources to implement.

This was a brilliant workshop! I love how the children can use the tiles for quick, fun and non-threatening learning of phonics. Great way to teach a student who does not want to commit to writing.

The School Start Spelling Buddy Case has all the equipment to teach reading, spelling and writing strategies. This creates less prep work for tutoring, it caters to all ages and makes it easier to work with students (talk about, experiment with sounds etc). It backs up Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar beautifully!

I got lots of ideas on how to use the School Start Spelling Case to support Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar. In particular I like the language to use with children, for example ‘magical suffix’, ‘magic e’ etc. This program is a wonderful way of using hands on tasks to teach spelling rules and language.

Brilliant! Great way to extend the Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics programs.