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Anna and Natalie have never met… not yet, anyway.
Although they don’t know each other, they have a couple of things in common – they’re both going to the same school in September and they both used Wordier as part of their 11+ journeys…
A couple of years ago, I had a pupil called Dillon, who struggled with anything English related.
When he came to me for 11+ tuition, his mum had told us that he had trouble with inferencing but it soon became apparent that his difficulties went beyond that – he had trouble with all types of comprehension questions and with cloze tests, too…
Wordier makes learning less of a chore, for both children and parents.
We’ve researched and tested our method with hundreds of kids and have found a way of using online and offline tools to help improve their vocab.
The best part? Kids actually love learning with Wordier (just ask our community of parents and students who say so).
Wordier supports children’s English work at school and preps them for the challenges of the 11+ through joyful, intuitive and easy-to-understand learning materials. Which means less stress for you, more joy for them – and a few more words to throw around the dinner table. Just don’t be surprised if they catch you out with a tough one!
After years of researching and testing with hundreds of children, it was clear to us that vocabulary improves most through repetition and targeted practice. So that’s how we’ve built our Wordier Toolkit. From our core online classes to illustrated workbooks with digital support, vocabulary flashcards to synonym card games that can be used by all the family. Kids can log on and learn, or log off and practise. It’s as simple as that.
After years of researching and testing with hundreds of children, it was clear to us that vocabulary improves most through repetition and targeted practice. So that’s how we’ve built our Wordier Toolkit.
From our core online classes to illustrated workbooks with digital support, vocabulary flashcards to synonym card games that can be used by all the family. Kids can log on and learn, or log off and practise. It’s as simple as that.
Anna and Natalie have never met… not yet, anyway.
Although they don’t know each other, they have a couple of things in common – they’re going to the same school in September and they both used Wordier as part of their 11+ journeys.
Anna and Natalie are both smart girls that started their 11+ preparation early, which definitely helped to set them up for success. Both girls had pretty good vocabularies, too, so their parents focused largely on other areas, like comprehension, maths and non-verbal reasoning.
As the girls started to complete practice papers and to do mocks, their parents began to realise that, despite their strong vocabularies, there were still a few challenging words that were tripping them up in exams.
That’s when they turned to Wordier.
Anna and Natalie’s mums were both confident in their own English skills, so they were happy to help their girls at home. Wisely, they were also very mindful of ensuring that their daughters maintained their love of learning and didn’t feel overloaded in the run-up to the exams. That’s why both parents opted to use the vocabulary flashcards and the illustrated workbook. For an extra top up, Anna also completed our summer vocabulary course (which she attended with enthusiasm).
Both families became particularly fond of our illustrated flashcards. Anna started telling her mum that “vocabulary is fun!” which, of course, was music to her ears!
Natalie’s mum was also pleased that the flashcards enabled her Year 3 son to learn alongside his older sister, giving him a little head start on his future 11+ preparation.
When the girls sat their 11+ exams last September, they both told their mums that several of the “Wordier words” had come up in the exam.
Natalie was so happy and confident after her exam that her mum tells us she “bounced” out afterwards.
Thanks to all their hard work and a little help from Wordier, both girls absolutely sailed through their exams, gaining places at their first choice school – Newstead Wood. Incredibly, Natalie also placed in the Top 180 in one of her other exams (the Bexley 11+) – an incredible feat considering she was up against 6000 children!
We can’t wait to see what the girls achieve at their new secondary school. Maybe they’ll even become friends!
Back in 2021, I had a pupil called Dillon, who struggled with anything English related.
When he came to me for 11+ tuition, his mum had told us that he had trouble with inferencing but it soon became apparent that his difficulties went beyond that – he had trouble with all types of comprehension questions and with cloze tests, too.
For months, we practised comprehension and cloze tests religiously, breaking down the story and discussing key elements in the hopes that Dillon would start to use these skills independently. It wasn’t happening, though. Whilst his maths and reasoning skills had improved immensely during his time with us, we struggled to move the needle on his English skills.
At this point in time, I’d been running my vocabulary classes for several months but, as a child with a busy schedule and two working parents, Dillon had been too busy to join.
For a long time, I avoided bringing up the vocab classes as I didn’t want to add any pressure to the family. The tipping point came, however, when Dillon had trouble with a cloze test in class. He selected the word “fur” rather than “feather” to go after “ostrich” in a passage. Why? Because he didn’t know what an ostrich was.
That’s when I realised that Dillon’s comprehension would never improve unless we really focused on his vocabulary.
After this lesson, I scheduled a call with Dillon’s mum and she promised to re-jig her schedule so that Dillon could attend my online vocabulary classes weekly. This was about 6 months before the exam.
Over the next few months, Dillon’s vocabulary came on in leaps and bounds. He competed in the weekly vocab contests, which gave him an incentive to revise each week. Although he wasn’t winning the contests, he was slowly but surely working his way up the leaderboard, which was an achievement in itself.
By the time of his exam in September, we were finally confident that his English skills were good enough to pass the test – and they were! Dillon passed the Bexley test with flying colours. This was particularly impressive given that 50% of Bexley marks were based on the “Verbal Reasoning” (a.k.a. English) portion of the exam.
Dillon is now at Bexley Grammar, where he’s thriving and building upon the solid foundation of knowledge that he built during the 11+.
If you’d like to support your child’s comprehension and vocabulary skills, head over to the Wordier shop today – https://wordier.online/shop/.
If you’d like personalised guidance on which product to start with, visit https://link.wordier.online/personalisemyplan.
Talia loves books. She would read all the time and always turned up early to her 11+ classes (gold star!) with her head in a book. I could tell that she really enjoyed English, which isn’t always the case with students.
As you might expect, a lot of her exams were heavily vocab-based, and even though she was an avid reader of long and challenging books, she was still having trouble with synonyms and antonyms. Despite these difficulties, she was very relaxed about her mocks, even when she only completed half of the paper!
When I spoke to her mum about this, she told me that Talia had been acting “too relaxed and cool” about her exams and her mum was worried that this would translate into a poor exam performance.
To keep Talia motivated, we decided to change strategies. Among other adjustments, Talia’s mum stopped working through word lists with her and used the Wordier Live vocabulary course to boost her vocabulary instead. Before long, Talia started to see her own improvement, excitedly telling me when she noticed ‘Wordier words’ in both her English and verbal reasoning papers. She was getting it!
After learning so much in the classes, Talia became an enthusiastic user of our illustrated flashcards, too. Suddenly, she wasn’t trying to avoid work at home but was actually keen to learn more.
We realised that this improvement wasn’t just because of what she was learning, but how she was learning it. With her vocab classes, Talia had become part of a fun community of kids where she could spot words, be motivated and actually see her hard work paying off.
Eventually, she aced all three exams that she took and got into a great grammar school (the same grammar school that I attended, actually).
Her mum says she’s still reading, still learning and still thriving. That’s a huge win for everyone.
The moral of the story? Kids need tools outside of books that will harness their skills. A lot of the time, it’s just about uncovering the best way to get them to learn. That’s where we come in.
