Literature of the Hart

How do you improve a student's vocabulary? Parents often want to help their children improve their writing, and as an English tutor I want to help children develop their vocabulary.  There is no quick fix, however: the secret to is increase the level of challenge of reading. A popular programme I run with Year 7-9 students is called Writing with Sherlock Holmes .  When students encounter well-written literature with a richness of language, they usually want to know more, enjoy expanding their command of words and flourish as they start to experiment with their own creativity. I am a specialist at stretching able students to achieve high grades, and  offer a free 30 minute online introductory session if you would like to know more .  Contact me via the Contact Form  here .

The current series of posts is looking at how to achieve top grades at GCSE English Language and English Literature. As an English tutor, I'm often approached by parents wanting to help their children improve in English.  And improving their writing is often a top priority. But knowing where to start is not always obvious. You can read the previous post, about developing different sentence types,  here . I teach my students how to use punctuation effectively, especially colons and semicolons.  I have written a short ebook to help anyone looking for self-study guidance, called A Dash of Punctuation . Having taught English in schools for over 30 years, I've learnt that as students move into GCSE study, they usually realise that they have not properly learnt some basic grammatical and punctuation rules.  The consequence is that they make mistakes, without understanding why in many cases.  The result can be lower grades than expected, and frustration. Colons and semicolons open up