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Can Do Kids Academy

Lisa Carter - primary school educator/consultant, Orton-Gillingham trained tutor. You'll find her ready-made resources on the Can Do Kids Academy website.

If you love studying words and their structure, or just want to understand them better, you're in the right place! Lisa creates resources to support parents, teachers and kids in their study of English orthography. Instant PDF downloads, straight to your inbox!

26/08/2026

Making Sense of English Spelling is finally almost ready - hopefully just in time for those heading back to school! 🥳

It's looking like the full collection of 23 mini-lessons will be 300+ pages.

It's designed to build an understanding of English spelling, so you can teach it with real confidence, in your own words.

It is NOT meant to be a scripted set of slides to read from.

I'm sharing here, a sneaky peek at lesson #2.

The full collection will be available as a PDF download.

Is this something you'd like in your toolkit - and would a PowerPoint version make that easier? 🤔

www.candokidsacademy.com

21/08/2026

𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘎𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 by Zeno Sworder has officially been named the 2026 CBCA Picture Book of the Year! 🎉

I was so excited to find this out yesterday! When I first shared this book a couple months ago, it had just been shortlisted, and I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to see it take out the award.

I talked then about how much I loved it as a picture book, but also about something else I love just as much: what happens when a wonderful text gives us something to notice about words.

This book is full of those moments.

The story naturally gives us words like 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥, 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥, 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥, 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 and 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥, and suddenly we're looking at the suffix in all sorts of different contexts.

What meaning does add here?
How is it pronounced?
What else can we discover hiding inside these words?

Picture books don't always need to become a lesson. Sometimes we should simply read them, enjoy them and appreciate the story and illustrations for what they are. But when a book gives us something worth noticing about language, I love the opportunity to stop for a moment.

Rather than treating a picture book as something we read and then move on from, we can sometimes use it as a place to notice, wonder, investigate and ask questions about language.

So when 𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘎𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 was shortlisted, I thought it was a beautiful book with an incredible amount of teaching potential.

Now it's the CBCA Picture Book of the Year! 💛

And I'm still just as excited about everything hiding inside its words.

I've pulled together the matrices from the words explored in the book, with space for students to construct their own word sums, along with a Going Deeper section for each of the bases explored. There's also an overview bringing all of those teaching possibilities together.

It's an 18-page resource, and it's free.

If you have the book, I hope it gives you even more ways to explore it. And if you don't, there's still plenty here to get you thinking about morphology.

Congratulations, Zeno Sworder!
What a book, and what a well-deserved win. 🌿✏️🏆

Download the free resource here:
www.candokidsacademy.com/product/once-i-was-a-giant/

14/08/2026

Connected in meaning. Connected in spelling.

do + es → does
do + ne → done

Spell them 𝘥𝘶𝘻 and 𝘥𝘶𝘯 and that connection is gone.

When spelling makes sense, there's nothing left to memorise.

The full resource, including two word matrices, is free to download.
The additional matrix (I'll pop an image into the comments) is great for differentiation.

www.candokidsacademy.com/product/do/

08/08/2026

It's amazing what we can and learn by taking a closer look at just one word and its family.

⭐️ graphs vs. digraphs vs. trigraphs
⭐️ when to use vs.
⭐️ representing /k/ and its etymology
⭐️ syllables and stress
⭐️ syllable counting in speech
⭐️ schwa
⭐️ suffix vs.
⭐️ agent suffix
⭐️ compounds

Aussies (and Brits? Kiwis?...who else?) can also investigate HOMOPHONES!

For most Aussies, the words 'teaches' and 'teachers' are homophones; they're pronounced the same, have different meanings and different spellings.

It's not until we dive deeper into the meanings of these two words that their different spellings can be explained and understood.

teach + es --> teaches
teach + er + s --> teachers

As a and a learner, nothing beats this depth of understanding.

MORPHOLOGY for the win!

Happy all.
😎

Download this free 18-page word study kit from here:
www.candokidsacademy.com/product/word-study-kit-teach/

05/08/2026

In case anyone missed these colouring pages from my last post!

I thought they'd be great for reinforcing the upper case and lower case story, and the blank page is perfect for students practising writing the alphabet in both lowercase and uppercase independently.

Hope they come in handy!

📰 www.candokidsacademy.com/product/printing-press/

01/08/2026

The evolution of a CDK resource...

Lots of you will recognise this little story behind the names of UPPERCASE and lowercase letters. 😊

It's one of my favourite pieces of language history, and my students always love discovering where those names came from.

Originally, this resource was going to include two word matrices: one for and one for . Because 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 is written as two separate words, the plan wasn't to include both bases on the same matrix.

But then the research began...and one little discovery led to the next.

My first stop was the Oxford English Dictionary (which I can access FREE online through my local library with my library card - definitely check to see if you can do the same 🥳). It was there that I noticed the OED analyses 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 as a compound.

As I dug a little deeper, I discovered that 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 was once a hyphenated compound before becoming the open compound we use today.

Since I already include both bases in my matrices for closed compounds (e.g. 𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙), hyphenated compounds (e.g. 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙-𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑛) and connected compounds (e.g. 𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑝ℎ, where the bases are joined by a connecting vowel letter), it suddenly made sense to include both bases here as well, even though 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 is written as two separate words.

By now, the resource was taking me somewhere I hadn't expected.

Then I started wondering: if the compounding of 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 had changed over time, what about 𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 and 𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒?

Naturally, that sent me back to the OED...

Sure enough, they have their own fascinating history, too. They began as 𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 and 𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒, later became 𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟-𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 and 𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟-𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒, and eventually settled into the closed compounds 𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 and 𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 we most often use now.

Then came my favourite discovery...

While checking the denotations for 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑡 and 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠, I discovered that they both ultimately trace back to the same Latin root, 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑒. 😲

That discovery sent me straight back into the research.

I checked Etymonline, went back to the OED, and cross-checked other sources.

And yes...every source led back to 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑒.

Suddenly, this little resource became so much more than a story about uppercase and lowercase letters.

It became an opportunity to explore different kinds of compounds, the history of words, and the fascinating connections hiding beneath the surface of our language.

The finished resource is only part of the story. The real journey happens while following one question after another.

I hope it sparks curiosity, creates a few "aha!" moments, and helps others see the English language with a little more wonder. 💛

Download this 7-pager for free from my site
(and oh yes, I hope you like the colouring pages! 🖍️🤗):
www.candokidsacademy.com/product/printing-press/

29/07/2026

People often tell me they love how clear and easy to follow my resources are.

Those comments mean more to me than people probably realise.

What people see is the finished resource. What they don't see are the hours that came before it: the reading, research, professional learning, conversations with colleagues, and the constant questioning of my own understanding.

I care deeply about getting it right.

But that's only half the job.

The other half, and my favourite part, is working out how to make something complex feel simple.

That might mean rewriting an explanation over and over, completely changing the sequence of a lesson, or spending hours searching for the right example, visual or layout that makes everything click.

When people tell me, "You make this so easy to understand," I smile, because making something feel simple is one of the hardest things I've ever learned to do.

Watching AI create beautiful resources in seconds has made me reflect on that invisible part of the process.

The finished resource is only the tip of the iceberg.

The real work is the thinking and knowledge behind it.

And, truthfully...I love that part most!

Whether I'm creating something for a teacher, parent, tutor, speech pathologist or student, my goal is always the same: to create something that's both accurate and genuinely easy to understand, while hopefully sparking a curiosity and love of language along the way.

That's the craft I love.

For the love of words,
Lisa 💛

www.candokidsacademy.com

01/07/2026

Last week of term here in NSW! 🥳

It's Week 11 (ugh), and most of us are dragging our feet towards Friday. Same boat? Then this 14-page collection is one to get downloaded and printed. It pairs nicely with my Glasshouse resource (previous post), but works just as well on its own.

There's plenty to investigate here:

🌿 digraph

🌿 replace silent final convention (𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 → 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨)

🌿 compounds (𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦, 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘵)

🌿 why 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴 is , not (listen for the extra syllable when the suffix is added - since we expect every syllable to have a letter representing a vowel, we need the in the suffix, and the silent final in the base is replaced)

🌿 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 as both a noun and a verb

🌿 can represent more than one phoneme (listen to the /s/ in the noun 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 and the /z/ in the verb 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦)

And because it's the last week of term, I've included some colouring pages, a good mix from simple florals to some lovely intricate ones, with a few gentle affirmations tucked among the leaves.

Just the thing for these last couple of days, when a quiet colouring session is about all anyone can manage! 🙃

And if you're already on holidays, whether you're taking a break here in Australia or well into summer on the other side of the world, grab it now and have it ready for when you're back.

Download it free on my website, link below:
www.candokidsacademy.com/product/house/

P.S. I hope you love the matrix as much as I loved making it! 🏡

30/06/2026

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 by Hélène Druvert

I've fallen for another beautiful book!

The illustrations are gorgeous - the lasercut pages let you peek through one layer into the next, so the scene seems to shift and grow as you go. The photos on these slides really don't do them justice. These pages are meant to be turned slowly, run under your fingers and taken in layer by layer (enjoy the oohs and ahhs from your students 🤩).

Here's some of what could be explicitly taught or revised with these slides:

🌿 Free base and bound base : two bases that trace back to one Old English verb (𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘣 was once the past tense of 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘣 and survives today only inside 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳).

🌿 The unpronounced : It's silent in 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘣 but pronounced in 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 (think about the that's silent in 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘣 but pronounced in 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦).

🌿 Replace the silent final convention: 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 → 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 → 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 → 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥.

🌿 Doubling convention: 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 → 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨.

🌿 Compounds: like 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘶𝘱 and 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳, which break neither suffixing convention (they join two bases, not a base and a vowel suffix, so there's nothing to trigger a change, which is why we don't write 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 or 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳).

Know someone who'd love this?
Feel free to share. 💚

Slides are free on my website, link below:
www.candokidsacademy.com/product/glasshouse/

27/06/2026

Those who know Kylie Conrad - Literacy Links Specialist Teacher and her work already know how exceptional she is.

If you haven’t checked out her page or website, do yourself a favour and head over.
I think you’ll be glad you did. 🤩

Address

Yarrawarrah, NSW
2233

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 7pm
Tuesday	8am - 7pm
Wednesday	8am - 7pm
Thursday	3:45pm - 6pm

Website

http://www.candokidsacademy.com/

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