Woodland animals whose Italian names run long

The creatures on the picture list are small — a hedgehog, a ladybird, a dragonfly, a finch — but their Italian names are anything but. RICCIO for the hedgehog is the short one at six letters. COCCINELLA, the ladybird, runs to ten; LIBELLULA has nine; FRINGUELLO, the finch, has ten again. Your child finds each one among the letters and rings it. The pictures make clear which creature each long word belongs to.

Doubled consonants are the pattern to notice here. RICCIO, COCCINELLA and FRINGUELLO all carry them, and a child scanning at speed will happily read straight past a double letter and miss the word entirely. Slowing down for those pairs is the skill this particular sheet builds. In RICCIO, the cc before an i is said like the ch in church, which is worth demonstrating once.

Print it after a walk in woodland or a nature programme, while the animals themselves are still fresh in mind. TARTARUGA, the turtle, and CARDINALE, the cardinal, are usually cleared first because their shapes stand out. Let the rest take as long as they take. Six long words found without help is more than most children manage in a first sitting. Two today and the rest tomorrow is a perfectly good result.