Three tricky grammar concepts and the tools to tackle them

English Stars

Any English teacher knows that some grammar rules are simply easier to learn than others. Students show us this every day in their writing. Tricky homophones, misused apostrophes and overuse of commas are just a handful of the common mistakes…

Illustrator Spotlight – Chloe Jasmine Harris

Sound Waves Literacy

In a small studio in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Chloe Jasmine Harris creates playful illustrations that are bursting with exciting details for children to discover.

Illustrator Spotlight – Fiona Miller

Sound Waves Literacy

For Fiona Miller, illustration is about exploration. It’s a way to travel to different locations without moving a muscle and an opportunity to create brand new worlds.

Teacher Spotlight – How Karyn Phillips uses her classroom to be a First Nations ally

Teacher Spotlight is a new series by Firefly Education that will share insights from a variety of education influencers who inspire fellow teachers with their unique classroom knowledge and helpful resources.

Speed up your students' mental maths practice

Think Mentals

The goal of mental computation is to be able to make quick, automatic and correct calculations. One way to encourage these skills is to have students time their daily mental computation exercises.

Match Up with a twist

Sound Waves Literacy

Match Up is a tried and true activity in Sound Waves Literacy classes, but why not get a little creative with it? Add a competitive twist to the online version of the activity and get the whole class involved!

All about Focus Words

Sound Waves Literacy

When it comes to spelling, selecting words that are worth focusing on is crucial to success. Every sound unit in Sound Waves Literacy includes a curated set of Focus Words. There’s more than meets the eye with these seemingly humble…

Fun ways to work with the focus sound

Sound Waves Literacy

Want to add an extra dash of excitement to your next spelling lesson? If you’re using Sound Waves Literacy, we have some fun ideas for working with focus sounds.

Illustrator Spotlight – Ollie Davis

Sound Waves Literacy

‘Making the reader believe in the world I have drawn is essential to my work.’