ROBERTA DE STENA, FIAMMETTA TENTONI, LORETTA TONELLI AND STEFANIA RONCI
SPIN THE E L U R H S I L G N E INSTRUCTIONS
BOX CONTENTS • • • • • •
TO BE /TO HAVE GRAMMAR PRESENT SIMPLE/PRESENT CONTINUOUS PERSONAL QUESTIONS VOCABULARY 1 AND 2 VOCABULARY 3 AND 4
The educational wheels included in this resource are designed as compensatory learning tools to support the development of English language skills and competencies. Their purpose is to provide pupils with practical, easy-to-use reference aids, that can be kept inside their coursebook or notebook, to help them strengthen memory and retrieve vocabulary, grammar, and key concepts whenever needed. The content of each wheel is designed to: • highlight the essential building blocks of learning, focusing on the core concepts that underpin a solid foundation in English;;
The Authors Roberta De Stena. Graduate in Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures (English and Spanish). She has taught English in preschool and primary school and served as a classroom tutor for a multimedia English learning project at UNI.Rimini. She currently teaches English in lower secondary school. Throughout her teaching career, she has placed particular emphasis on learner engagement, motivation, and the use of play-based learning of the English language, adopting a wide range of strategies to meet students’ diverse learning styles. Fiammetta Tentoni. Educationalist and teacher with experience in both primary and lower secondary education. Passionate about teaching, she has worked with her pupils to develop strategies that promote meaningful and effective learning. She has led study skills workshops for lower and upper secondary students and has promoted the dissemination of good educational practice through school projects and teacher training. She currently collaborates with the EduAction Association on the Help Desk for Different Learning Styles project and teaches Italian to adult learners at the Arcobaleno Association in Rimini, where she lives with her family. Since 2015, she has conducted professional development courses for teachers on inclusive education and the teaching of Italian..
• make effective use of visual learning by combining clear, functional graphics with words, images, and color to support memory and understanding. Although originally developed as compensatory tools for pupils with Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs), these wheels provide valuable support for the whole class. They promote an inclusive teaching approach by making learning more accessible and accommodating a range of learning styles.
Loretta Tonelli. Graduate in Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures (English and German). After several years of teaching in evening schools for private candidates and in primary education, she now teaches in lower secondary school. For many years, she has coordinated a school project aimed at strengthening English language skills through the teaching of geography. Her teaching experience has reinforced her belief that intrinsic motivation and self-esteem, combined with movement and visualization and supported by respect for individual learning pace, are key factors in successful learning. Stefania Ronci. Specialized support teacher working in upper secondary education. Since 2009, she has collaborated with educational organizations and associations on training programmes and projects for teachers and parents focusing on Specific Learning Disorders (SLD). Since 2019, she has coordinated the Help Desk for Different Learning Styles project in collaboration with the EduAction Association in Rimini, where she manages the parent support service. It was through this experience, and with the aim of responding as closely as possible to the needs of children and their families, that the learning wheels were conceived and developed.
INTRODUCTION The Learning Wheels were conceived and developed by teachers with expertise in inclusive education, who have incorporated learning support strategies into their teaching in response to careful observations of how children learn. Children may encounter a wide range of challenges throughout their school experience. These may arise from the nature of different learning tasks or from individual cognitive and neurological characteristics. Such differences can make learning particularly demanding: cognitive difficulties may affect tasks requiring logical reasoning and inference, while Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs) can make it more difficult to automate basic English language structures and to retain new vocabulary. The tools presented
here are designed to guide children through the steps involved in completing a task while reducing the cognitive effort required to recall key concepts and subject-specific terminology. This enables learners to devote more attention to the cognitive aspects of the task itself. The Learning Wheels are not intended to replace clear explanations or guided reading by the teacher, which remain essential for the development of language competence and accurate pronunciation. Instead, they provide effective support for remembering English vocabulary, language functions, and key grammatical structures.
THE ENGLISH WHEELS These Learning Wheels are compensatory learning tools designed to support the development of knowledge, skills, and competencies. Their purpose is to provide students with practical, easy-to-use reference aids that are always at hand and can be kept inside their coursebook to support memory and the retrieval of concepts, vocabulary, and procedures. The content of the wheels: • focuses on the essential building blocks of learning, the core concepts that provide the foundation for each subject area; • is presented through clear, purposeful graphics, using text, arrows, colors, and images that make effective use of visual learning as a powerful aid to memory. Although originally developed as compensatory tools for students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs), the Learning Wheels are a valuable resource for the entire class. They also offer teachers a methodological model for implementing effective inclusive teaching practices..
TO BE/TO HAVE This Learning Wheel presents the conjugation of the verbs to be and to have in the main sentence patterns used in English: • affirmative form • contracted affirmative form • contracted negative form • interrogative form How it’s used On the outer ring of each wedge, the verb and its grammatical form are clearly identified and accompanied by an emoji that provides a visual cue to its function. Inside each wedge, the complete conjugation of the verb is shown with all subject pronouns. Color coding helps students recognize the structure of the sentence: the subject is shown in black, the verb in red, and the negative element in blue. Selecting the appropriate wedge enables students to identify the correct verb form and use it as guided support when completing activities, helping them activate the language structure most appropriate for the task.
GRAMMAR How it’s used Each wedge focuses on a particular aspect of the content that is being studied. The content covered is indicated on the outer edge of each wedge: • side 1: subject pronouns, object pronouns, demonstrative adjectives, possessive adjectives, Saxon genitive, prepositions; • side 2: articles and noun plurals. The key words are printed in red capital letters to make them easy to recognize, while their Italian equivalents appear in black lowercase letters to support comprehension. Some language topics also include simple illustrations, providing an additional visual aid to help maintain students’ attention and reinforce learning.
PRESENT SIMPLE/ PRESENT CONTINUOUS The six wedges cover the first verb tenses introduced in primary school: Present Simple in the affirmative, interrogative, and contracted negative forms, and Present Continuous in the affirmative, interrogative, and contracted negative forms. On the reverse side, students will find there is and there are in the affirmative, negative, and interrogative forms, together with the main WHquestion words used to introduce questions: when?, where?, what?, how?, why?, and who? How it’s used Present Simple is used to describe habitual actions and daily routines, whereas Present Continuous is used to describe actions that are happening at the moment of speaking. The WH- question words are essential for forming questions and play a key role in reading comprehension and speaking activities, including role-plays. The structures There is / There are are necessary for activities where places, pictures and situations need to be described.
PERSONAL QUESTIONS This Learning Wheel has been designed to support spoken interaction on topics related to the personal sphere. Each wedge focuses on a specific topic: the outer edge presents a question, while the inside of the wedge repeats the question, though not always in the first person, and provides useful prompts to help students formulate an answer. The questions cover topics such as name, age, where someone is from, leisure activities, likes and preferences (for example, favorite sport, color, or school subject), daily routines, physical appearance, and feelings. How it’s used The outer edge of the wheel displays questions about personal information, while the inside of each wedge offers different ways of answering them. Using the prompts provided, students are encouraged to develop their spoken English. With the teacher’s guidance, both the questions and the suggested answers can be adapted or expanded, enabling learners to talk about themselves, the activities they enjoy, and their personal preferences.
VOCABULARY 1 AND 2 The Learning Wheel consists of 8 wedges arranged across two sides. It supports students in recalling and consolidating vocabulary from a range of lexical fields. Each side of the wheel contains 4 wedges, with the vocabulary topic clearly indicated on the outer edge. Inside each wedge, the vocabulary items are presented vertically and accompanied by full-color illustrations to support comprehension. The vocabulary areas covered are: colours, numbers, days of the week, months and seasons, sports, family, pets and animals, the house. The wedges dedicated to the days of the week, months, and seasons also include the most commonly used prepositions (in, on, at). How it’s used By rotating through the wedges, students can organize vocabulary into logical lexical groups. The accompanying illustrations help them recall, read, and revise the words, while also reinforcing correct spelling.
VOCABULARY 3 AND 4 The Learning Wheel consists of 8 wedges arranged across two sides. It supports students in recalling and consolidating vocabulary from a range of lexical fields. Each side of the wheel contains 4 wedges, with the relevant vocabulary topic clearly indicated on the outer edge. Inside each wedge, the vocabulary items are presented vertically and accompanied by full-color illustrations to support comprehension. The vocabulary areas covered are: the weather, clothes, face and body, food and drinks, in town, my daily routine, free-time activities, at school. How it’s used By rotating through the wedges, students can organize vocabulary into logical lexical groups. The accompanying illustrations help them recall, read, and revise the words, while also reinforcing correct spelling.
Planning / Editing: Sara Lisa Di Mario Graphic design: Leonardo Michelon Page layout: Andrea Mantica Art direction: Giordano Pacenza Illustrated by Roberta Cavaliere ISBN 978-8-859-05020-9 © 2026 Edizioni Centro Studi Erickson S.p.A. Finished printing in September 2026
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