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Hey! Can You Help Me Find My Syllables?
This book emphasises the importance of developing syllable awareness in pre-readers and early readers to enhance their pronunciation, reading, spelling, and writing skills. Research shows that effective pronunciation is essential for improving communication skills, as it ensures clarity and understanding (Prikazchikov et al., 2024). By recognising syllables, young learners can identify sound units within words, which fosters phonological awareness. This awareness is crucial for understanding the complex sound system of a language, including words, sentences, syllables, onsets, rhymes, and phonics (Gillis, M., 2019).
Research indicates that early awareness of syllables helps children connect letters to syllable-sound units, which in turn enhances their phonemic awareness. This skill is crucial for mastering reading, writing, and spelling (Zagar et al., 2020). An example of syllables and phonemes can be learnt from the word “passionfruit”. This word can be phonetically analysed into 3 syllables: Pas-sion-fruit, each with a distinct vowel sound and 12 phonemes, represented as p-a-s-s-i-o-n-f-r-u-i-t.
To further improve children’s reading and writing abilities, research from the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE, 2004) shows that high-quality preschool programmes significantly benefit children’s intellectual, social, and emotional development. Additionally, a supportive home learning environment—characterised by activities like reading, singing, shared thinking, and modelling positive behaviours—plays a crucial role in enhancing children’s academic and social skills. These factors help increase children’s proficiency in reading and maths by age 6.
Sylva et al. (2004) The Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) Project: Final Report: A Longitudinal Study Funded by the DfES 1997-2004. SSU/FR/2004/01. [online]. London: EPPE. Pp. 1–9. Available at: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10005309 (Accessed: 13 July 2025).
Zagar, D. et al. (2020) ‘Syllable-first rather than letter-first to improve phonemic awareness’, Scientific Reports, 22103(10), pp. 1–8. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79240-y
Prikazchikov et al. (2024). Teaching Pronunciation with Confidence. Ames: Iowa State University Digital Press.
£7.99 -
Travel back in time to 1965, to the tropical capital of the Philippines, Manila. Protagonist Jessica Hernandez runs the busy student newspaper, The Shield.
A local detective case pulls her away from her duties, and a scholarly stranger becomes a new friend. The Shield is a fictional story set in a historical past. A tale of time gone by, culture, and people.
It is a charming retrospective told through the lens of an empowered female lead character.
£6.99 -
Hermit Crab is growing up fast and needs a new home. On his search for a new shell, he encounters many interesting alternatives along the way. Alas, none of them feel quite right
As his journey unfolds, he comes to the horrible realisation that his beautiful beach has been turned into a dump!
What will poor Hermit do? Can he come up with a plan to save his beautiful beach?
£8.99 -
If you are eager to improve your capabilities and knowledge and want to avoid the mistakes that are commonly made when dealing with life, business and people, you should read this book.
If you are intent on advancing sometimes against the tide of opinion of those who are stuck in the glories of the past and opposed to the opportunities of the future, you should read this book.
If you want to prepare your mind and find out how to implement change and success strategies while the world around you is continuously changing, you should read this book.
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Your Special Garden: Aloneness and Anxiety
Bedtime can sometimes feel a little scary. But what if your child could create a special place using their imagination – to build a garden of extraordinary abundance, have fun, feel safe and experience a peaceful night’s sleep? In this heartwarming story, children are invited on a gentle journey to their own Special Garden—a peaceful haven where they can feel calm and safe, no matter what’s happening in the world around them. Through soothing words and beautiful illustrations, Your Special Garden: Aloneness and Anxiety shows children that, like a loving hug or a treasured memory, there’s always a safe space for them to return to when the lights go down. Inspired by Christine’s own experiences, this book offers children a tool to cope with their worries, honour their emotions, and find comfort in sleep. Aloneness and anxiety can create a sense of disconnection. A guiding poem provides inspiration, but how they see and use their garden is only limited by their imagination – and yours! A perfect bedtime read, this book will leave children feeling ready to drift into dreamland with peace in their hearts.
£9.99 -
Letters to My Son by Nguyễn Đức Tùng, translated by Võ Thị Như Mai, is a profound collection of insights, journeys, and wisdom—a father’s gift to his children and to all young minds stepping into the future.
Through meaningful experiences and thoughtful letters, the author shares life’s lessons, urging the next generation to embrace change, think freely, and live with courage, honesty, and joy.
“The path of humanity is forward and upward. You will live differently from us, just as we lived differently from our parents. Live wisely. Live meaningfully. In this vast universe, Earth is but a fragile speck. To keep it whole, we must care for it—today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.”
A book of love, hope, and deep contemplation—Letters to My Son is a conversation across time, reminding us of our shared responsibility to life, nature, and one another.
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Sir Edward Grey’s Liberal Critics: 1905–1914
Sir Edward Grey was the Liberal Foreign Secretary [1905-16], the longest continuous post holder in British history and arguably, through his foreign policy, was instrumental in Britain’s entry into the First World War. The decision for war, whilst exercised by a nominal Liberal Cabinet, was considered by his own Liberal Party critics to be a failure of policy.
This book, relying on relatively newly archived material for the first time in over fifty years, challenges certain historiographical assumptions surrounding the way colleagues within his own party endeavoured to bring about a directional change of policy.
Whilst several leading scholars have dealt with Anglo-German foreign policy, drawing on new research, this book identifies and carries out a detailed evaluation of the criticisms to establish justification for Grey’s policy. The argument will be presented that the activities of the so-called ‘Liberal Radicals’ laid the foundation stones for a complete change in the way that foreign policy was carried out after the cessation of conflict and that no longer was Britain’s foreign policy in the hands of the few but became fundamentally within the control of the parliamentary structure.
This book will be useful reading for those who are interested in Edwardian Liberal Politics.
£12.99 -
‘Who has a key to open all doors?
When all doors open into closed rooms?
One room contains the happiness of human lives.
One room is furnished with desolation.
One room is a silent swirling cosmos.
But who has a key to open all doors?
The golden key to a golden existence...?’
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Virtue and Innocence Are Purity
Respect is earned by purity and integrity.
With every ending you may not have wanted, comes a beginning you might have needed.
We can’t master our entire life in one day. Relax every day and just master the day every day.
Love is always the answer.
Be yourself. Have your own unchanging values.
Possess virtue and innocence.
£5.99 -
The Tale of Goby and Snappy and How to be Happy
Dive into a delightful underwater adventure and discover the magic of friendship.
When Goby the fish and Snappy the shrimp meet by chance, an unexpected bond begins to grow — one that could change everything.
Join them beneath the waves in a heartwarming tale about trust, teamwork, and finding joy where you least expect it.
£9.99 -
It’s not easy to stand alone. But it’s harder to compromise your very essence striving for the unattainable approval and expectations of others.
The world will threaten, mock and abuse to contain the free spirit. Yet some people will not be cancelled, cowed nor silenced. And despite their vulnerability they seek authentic and transparent honesty, whether the world likes it or not.
Through our tears and our laughter, we each journey onward until it is over, teaching, learning from and inspiring one another by the telling of our stories.
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The Nest: Where Wildflowers Grow
After being cast out of the wasteland like many women before her, Tara, a fifty-three-year-old former psychologist, sets out on a mission to bring freedom and joy back into the lives of women. Set in an off-grid community, surrounded by trees, mountains and a vast open lake, this is an exceptional story where the beauty and deep wisdom of nature override the harshness of a concrete society that thrives on order. The Nest illustrates the coming together of those who have been treated most harshly by inhumane systems and who are now looking to Tara for guidance on the greatest question of all.
How do we heal ourselves and the world in which we live?
From connecting with Mother Nature, letting go of the past and dropping into the sweetness of the present moment, The Nest unearths the remarkable potential of each human being through nourishing relationships, meditation, and the connection of mind, body and soul.
£9.99
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