Skillswise is the BBC website for adults who want to improve their reading, writing, listening and numbers skills. The site aims to provide a revision resource for students and tutors and to continue building an online community where learners and tutors can share their learning and teaching experience. All of the materials online and on the CD are mapped to the Adult Literacy and Numeracy Core Curriculums. Although the website has been developed with Level 1 learners in mind, a far broader cross-section of students at various levels and from various backgrounds has found it helpful.

The Skillswise team has taken elements of the Curriculums and commissioned basic skills tutors to produce factsheets, worksheets, games and quizzes around them. Each module also has tutor notes with a guide to using that module and ideas for taking it further. There are two Words and two Numbers modules on the CD to give you an idea of the type of resources you can find on the website.

Other features include:

‘Your stories’- a chance for students to submit their own writing on any topic of interest to them; the top four of which are published monthly online;
‘In the news’ quizzes – a weekly collection of the hottest news, sport, entertainment, listening and numbers stories with interactive quizzes and glossary definitions for the most difficult words;
Word puzzles – crosswords and word searches to help with spelling;
Number puzzles – crosswords to test mental maths sums and word searches to improve numbers vocabulary.

The Tutor Centre is a dedicated area for tutors and contains:
Lesson plans – a selection of tried and tested lesson plans relevant to the modules on the CD sent in by tutors;
Teaching inspirations – fun ideas to help you in teaching the subjects on the CD;
Expert Column – an edition of a piece written by an expert in the field on a basic skills-related topic (published monthly on the website);
Newsletter signup – a chance to sign up for the weekly email newsletter with the latest on the website and the basic skills world.

Finally, the Help section should answer any questions you have on using the CD-ROM and ‘Have your say’ shows you the Messageboard and lets you tell us what you think of it all. So please do so here!