Starfish

Starfish Helping you help your child or students thrive. Education/Therapy store. NDIS Provider.
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Starfish store is a business that offers:
- Quality educational advice backed by a masters degree in special education
- Academic assessments and/or referrals for cognitive assessments
- Strong links with other professionals
- Individualised tutoring that targets specific learning goals and builds confidence (reading, spelling, maths, gaps in learning)
- Intensive teaching programs to gain maximu

m results, rapidly
- School readiness programs
- Products that cater to the scientist within, early childhood, spelling, literacy, maths and more!
- Guidance for the selection of the best games and resources to meet needs
- An array of hand-selected, top quality educational products that make great gifts
- Specialist programs and consulting for children/students with significant special needs, trauma background, history of poor school attendance, behavioural issues, disengagement from schooling.

22/06/2026

Busting to learn some strategies to help this little fellow master the sounds for c and k, as well as g.
Because i get to work one to one, I have the opportunity to support him “on the spot” and reinforce what’s happening in speech therapy.
Im not a speech pathologist. Not planning on going back to uni (well, not to speech pathology anyway) but i can learn little strategies to use in my specialist tutoring centre.
It’s never about replacing speech pathology - they’re the experts. And if there is any cause for concern I’m an advocate for early intervention.
“If in doubt, check it out” with a specialist on their field.
I’ll report back!

22/06/2026

Madi getting the ball rolling.

21/06/2026

Many children need a LOT more successful practice decoding a word in order to map that word orthographically and save it in their mental lexicon (for later instant retrieval of that word).
In order to move from decoding each and every word in connected text we need to ensure our students:
1. Are strong in phonemic awareness, phonics (letter/sound knowledge) and decoding.
2. Have loads of practice with the above.
Often we under-estimate just how much practice some students need to mastery, and so they can map words orthographically.
3. Can do ALL the above FAST.
We know that rapid serial naming contributes to learning to read success.
Let me know in the comments if you’d like ideas for how you can give enough practice and also improve how fast they can retrieve, name and blend sounds in CVC words.
Another thing that you might consider, if your child seems to be “stuck” at the decoding stage when reading connected text, especially if you’ve done all of the above, is to check their vision and vision perception with a Behavioural Optometrist.
Of course, we also help children with their fluency by teaching high frequency words. But that’s another topic.

19/06/2026

So far so good. I’ve thought of a few ways to modify this high frequency word game as well.
- make it 3 in a row to win (to make the game quicker if needed)
- make it more likely your child or student will win by allowing them to switch out one of your counters for one of theirs, if a column has all its words claimed
- play it cooperatively by working together to complete 6 in a row OR a column.
Such a fun easy and quick way to practice high frequency words, and to give them the amount of exposure needed to mastery.
You can easy whip this up in canva as I did.
But keep your eye on our socials if you’d like it as a free download to save yourself a bit of time.
My son Billy will get it sorted over the weekend and I’ll let you know when it’s ready for you.

17/06/2026

Games are an easy and fun way to provide the amount of practice that most students need to “file away” a bank of high frequency words - so they can recall them quickly (know them to automaticity).
Having a bank of known high frequency words when you’re reading means you don’t have to stop and “figure out” every single word on the page.
It means you will be able to read more fluently and this also helps comprehension, not to mention makes the whole reading process much more satisfying and enjoyable.
I whipped up this 6 x 6 tanks in canva and included 36 high frequency words.
You’ll need a die and some way for the players to claim each word as their own.
I’m using two coloured counters (red/yellow), but you could use bottle tops or buttons or even different coloured white board markers.
Roll the die.
Choose a word from that column.
Read the word and place your counter on top.
That word is now taken.
Next player rolls the die and finds a word in the column rolled, they read the word and place one of their counters.
If there are no words left in a column rolled then that player misses a turn.
🏆 the winner is the first player to get 4 in a row (vertically, horizontally or diagonally).
😊
Alternate rules:
- the winner is first person to get 3 in a row
- if all words are taken in the column rolled, the youngest player may switch out one of the other players words in that column and claim it as their own.
It was so easy to whip up in canva, but let me know if you’d like this as a free download and I’ll ask my son Billy (our resident website/IT extraordinaire) to get it sorted asap.

15/06/2026

Removing supports too early can backfire. And I unfortunately made a leap too far for one little girl I’m currently working with.
The goal is to help her improve handwriting and write letters correctly.
Dyspraxia may be added to her diagnosis.
Last week, her pencil control (stop and start, shape, speed etc) suggested she might be ready to move from the thicker textured paper we’d been using onto regular paper.
As the regular paper is lined, I decided I’d also step to using these lines rather than the wide/large writing guide lines I’d been preparing (with my Micador Review Ruler).
Clearly that was a poor decision!
Whilst her pencil control was good, using the regular paper, the smaller lines meant the formation of the letters required much finer precision than she’s able to produce just yet.
I’ll need to continue preparing the writing guide lines, with the ruler, for the moment.
But, still celebrating we’ve successfully transitioned from the thicker textured paper to regular paper.
That’s a win.
🏆
So far, the supports I’ve put in place for this particular student (in order of progression) are:
- thick textured paper
- wide ruled handwriting guide lines
- chubby markers
- thick markers
- 2B thick, triangular graphite pencil
- horizontal surface
- vertical surface (page pinned to corkboard on the wall)
- slant board
- thick textured paper taped into A4 scrapbook
- A4 scrapbook (but I’ll revert back to preparing the wide handwriting guide lines for the moment).
Eventually the goal will be to be writing the letters comfortably and successfully direct into the scrapbook using the lines provided.
We’re getting closer!

14/06/2026

Celebrating every step forward in developing handwriting skills for our little 5year old girl (multiple diagnosis: AuDHD, suspected dyspraxia and PDA profile).
We have successfully moved from using thick and textured paper onto regular paper.
This is such good news. It will make it much easier in the classroom and at home. This is a very practical move, given access to thick and textured paper is not always easy.
And it shows her handwriting control is developing as she no longer needs the sensory feedback (and “drag”) the thicker textured paper provided to help her control her hand movement.
But I did make a leap too far.
I thought she’d be ready to move to the lines provided on the page of the scrapbook we use - but it was a fail. Not of her. It was a fail on me.
The size difference from the ruler defined lines was too big a leap down to the size of the letters needed when using the lines on the regular paper.
I’ll need to continue using the ruler defined lines for the moment.
Supports we are now using to help this little one develop her handwriting and letter formation:
- slant board
- thick triangular 2B pencil
- preprepared lines (using the review ruler).

Madi Collabs. It’s a thing. Madi loves making content. We believe small businesses are an important part of community an...
13/06/2026

Madi Collabs.
It’s a thing.
Madi loves making content.
We believe small businesses are an important part of community and we are grateful for our own growing tribe and platform, as a small business ourselves.
We do our best to support local small businesses. But we realised we could do more, by featuring a local small business in Madi’s content.
Everyone wins.
Starfish wins - because we are walking our talk.
Madi wins - because she builds on her content skills.
The small business wins - because we do the heavy lifting AND share our platform to promote their business.
You win - you get to see lots more local businesses and enjoy even more of Madi’s marvellous content!
🩷🌸🩷🌸🩷🌸🩷🌸🩷🌸🩷🌸🩷
If you know of a small business who’d be perfect for a Madi Collab, send us a DM.
⭐️💝⭐️💝⭐️💝⭐️💕⭐️💝⭐️💝⭐️
Madi has already featured 3 different small businesses in the last month.
She has her next one booked in for Thursday week.
💙🦋💙🦋💙🦋💙🦋💙🦋💙🦋💙🦋
Feel free to nominate your own small business.
It could be a dentist, a coffee shop, a retail store, a preschool….
When small businesses thrive, everyone benefits.
There’s more jobs.
There’s more goods on services to be offered.
There’s more tax.
There’s more community donations.
There’s more person-to-person relationship.
💚✅💚✅💚✅💚✅💚✅💚✅💚✅
Tag your favourite business.
Share this post.
Be part of our mission to send a little love to other small businesses.

Address

Gerringong Industrial Park. Unit 6, 67 Rowlins Road
Wollongong, NSW
2534

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 2pm
Tuesday 10am - 2pm
Wednesday 10am - 2pm
Thursday 10am - 2pm
Friday 10am - 2pm

Telephone

+61490515957

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