Homophones

What exactly is a homophone? Wikipedia says this-

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too.

Learning about homophones and other word skills can be fun with vocabulary games. Sometimes though if a child already has challenges with spelling, introducing the words together can be very confusing. It sometimes helps to teach the one spelling and meaning separate from the other one until the child has it solid in their mind. Growing up I remember being very confused with these three homophones in particular- there, their, and they're. I think I figured out "they're" first as the ' replaces the a in "they are". Next I learned that for the word "their" it had the i and meant that something belonged to them. A reminder for me using there is that the last part is the same as where. So if someone asked "where" you could say "there". Rereading that it sounds silly, but when learning sometimes things just trigger something in your brain to help you figure something out. I'm also a big fan of online homophone games to reinforce vocabulary skills. Of course that wasn't available when I was a child.

Here is a cute homophone video I found that is from Between the Lions.

I also found this online that uses homophones (incorrectly) to make a very punny poem.


 Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer


It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


(Sauce unknown)