Regardless of the age of students you are working with, we are always seeking to extend their language and comprehension skills in all subject areas. Introduction Blanks Questions were developed by Marion Blank and provide 4 levels of scaffolding to support students at different levels of language development. For each level I have created an […]
Where do you start? Take a quick look around the people you know, how do they hold their pencil or pen? There are some many ways, it is very individual. So what is good and what is bad? Let's take a look at what is important. Is handwriting important still in the 21st Century? The […]
I am writing this post for a colleague who is moving from upper Junior school to Prep for 2022. I hope the knowledge I share will help other teachers in a similar position. Mrs M I know you will be amazing. Where do you start? The 2 biggest pieces of research that inform teaching reading […]
Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify the different sounds in word. At a basic level this is being able to segment and blend syllables, followed by blending and segmenting sounds. Children need to be taught these skills as they are foundational to learning to crack the code. After the basic blending and segmenting skills […]
I recommend building a sound wall in your room, as you teach each sound add a visual and words to support the students learning. This great article gives more information. There are many sound walls out there you can buy but many are American based dialect which does not work in Australia, and this may […]
The English language is more predictable than we realise. Our 26 letters can be combined to make 44 different phonemes - speech sounds. However, there are 75 main graphemes that we need to learn to be able to crack the code. Of the 75, 27 make more than one sound e.g. ow in snow or […]
What is a transition? Transitions happen all day every day. We move from one room to another, one place to another. There are also much bigger transitions that we encounter which require more preparation. They key thing is the knowledge is power whether we are planning a transition for ourselves or for a student at […]
In a previous post I have explained the 3 tiers of words that students need to learn from the basic everyday words through to technical vocabulary. In this post I will go deeper into what this is and how to apply in your teaching. Tier 1 These are every day words that are used in […]
A few months ago I read The Reading Comprehension Blueprint by Nancy Hennessey (2021). Many of you may have heard of the book but not had time to read it yet. It is a great book which draws on the research about how to teaching reading, and specifically reading comprehension. The book includes Interactive study […]
There are 11 different types if addition and subtraction problem types but only 3 for multiplication and division. Multiplication #groups x amount per group = ?total e.g. 3x5= Partitive division #groups x ?amount per group = total e.g. 6 X ? = 12 Measurement division ?groups x amount per group = total e.g. ?x4=16 Watch […]
