Southland books designed to lay the foundation for life-long learning are set to make their mark on the world stage.

Essential Resources, a teaching-materials company started out of a laundry in Invercargill, celebrated the launch of two books written by Southland teachers yesterday - Strategies for Spelling, by Myross Bush School deputy principal Jan Forde, and Say It Clearly, penned by Miriam Erikson.

Both women are first-time authors, and their titles are designed to lay the groundwork to encourage more effective learning for pupils from a young age.

At the launch yesterday Mrs Erikson, who has a background in speech and drama, said the idea for her book came after she developed a learning guide for parents who had children who studied speech with her.

"Say It Clearly is for teachers to teach children how to enunciate sounds clearly and pronounce words clearly, which they need for reading and writing. If they can't say the sounds properly, they can't spell things correctly."

Mrs Forde's book laid out strategies for teachers to help pupils with their spelling.

"I wanted to be more than putting a list [of spelling words] in on a Monday, and testing on a Friday," she said.

Generally teachers were good at coming up with strategies to develop other areas of learning, such as reading and numerical problems, but there were more than 170,000 words in the English language, she said.

Say It Clearly is designed for children from preschool age to junior primary school, while Strategies For Spelling is for years 1 to 6.

Essential Resources commissioning editor Jo Issa said it was great to see the company's local success story continue.

"It's taking Myross Bush and Waihopai to the world."

Essential Resources started in late 2000 from the small laundry of Invercargill woman - and managing director - Nicola Smith's home. Now, exporting accounts for 65 per cent of the turnover she manages with Christchurch-based publishing director Geraldine Sloane.

Among countries using resources produced by Essential Resources were Britain, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong, and New Zealand, Ms Issa said. 

- © Fairfax NZ News

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