We recently added a simple but nevertheless clever little Flash teaching resource called Other words to use rather than SAID to the Topmarks Search Engine. A teacher in Australia has published this from words gathered by pupils from fiction books.

Whilst I haven't used the resource personally in the classroom, it can be used in various ways in Key Stage 2:

  • after the same activity as in the Australian classroom where you compare the words with your own pupils' findings
  • as a memory game - how many words can the children remember?
  • for a plenary
  • in conjunction with another great website called Don't Use Said for showing children how to improve sentences containing dialogue.

In Don't use Said you can get the children to find the alternatives to 'said' that have been used in the sentences.

I would also recommend this website if you are teaching speech marks. Clever use of coloured text helps children to identify dialogue and sentences can be viewed with or without punctuation.

Both websites are ideally suited for use on an interactive whiteboard.