A big thank you to all the teachers who sent us testimonials for the Magic Belt Series. With your help, the series has been shorlisted for the SEN Education Awards 2013. Much appreciated as we know how busy you are! We thought others might be interested to read some of them.
I am a semi retired teacher who is now doing 1 to 1 mentoring with underachieving yr7/8 students. The librarian for our school found your books and after discussion it was decided to purchase them for our students. I see my pupils once a week for 1 hr, they also receive “toe to toe” support and “Read, write inc” sessions.I use your books to give the students a story to follow. We use the reading practice words for spelling and writing practice both before and after reading the story. We generally get through a book in 1 session: Practice words for last session’s book, Reading of that book, Reading of the next book followed by this book’s practice words.That is the theory, but obviously things do not always go as planned. My students are all boys at the moment and are really enjoying the serial aspect of the series. S. M.
I have an older, catch up reader. The magic belt series are instantly engaging as they appeal to the older struggling reader with their exciting story lines and vivid pictures. The scaffolded text and language allows weak reading skills to be strengthened and brings confidence to the struggling reader. C. N.
Hi, I’ve very happy with the Magic Belt books and am using them with 2 pupils at the moment. One of these children is a girl, nearly 10 years old and due to an undiagnosed medical condition, she needed to build her reading ‘wall’ very slowly. These books hold her attention and at the moment she seems to be making steady progress. The other, a boy of seven, has attention difficulties and attitude, but he enjoys these stories and the illustrations, allowing his skills to improve steadily without objections and interruptions! I am using the ‘four in a row’ games from the early Dandelion 11-20 alongside these Magic Belt books, all my pupils enjoy these games and our time is fairly limited. P. A.