English · Homophones
Homophone Highway
Drive each sentence through the gate that fills the gap.
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Why this works
their, there and they are sound identical, so your ear cannot sort them out. Your eye has to. Use one test per gate. First stretch it: swap in "they are" and read it back, because "they are going to win" works but "they are bags" does not. Then ask if it points at a place or announces something, which is there, the word with here hiding inside it. Whatever is left belongs to somebody, and that is their. Stretch, place, own: run those three in order and you will never guess again.
Helping a child through Homophone Highway
Hints, least revealing first
- Read the gap out loud as "they are". If the sentence still makes sense, take the they are gate.
- If you could point at the spot, or the sentence is telling you something is somewhere, take the there gate.
- their always owns the next word: their bags, their team, their turn.
When they finish it: “Whole road cleared!”
11+ skill this exercise practises
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Homophone Highway practises one skill. English has 41 of them
A free diagnostic covers every english skill and the other three subjects, and comes back with a shortlist rather than a list.