Podcast and Blog
What Does an Upper Primary Reading Lesson Look Like?
Transcript Summary
Many upper primary teachers are very used to having small groups and running guided reading lessons as a core part of their literacy block. Equally, many of us are used to teaching from a novel and having a novel study present in our classrooms. If we are already teaching with a rich text, we are able to level this up with some key practices. If we aren't there yet, we have a little more work to do, but moving to structured literacy is absol…
What Play Can and Cannot Do for our Early Years Students.
The first thing I want to say is that I'm a strong advocate for explicit teaching in early literacy skills. And if you know me, that will come as no shock to you at all. I write about and I teach others about teacher-led systematic instruction and literacy. There is ample research evidence showing that full guidance instruction is much more effective than partial guidance for everyone but experts, and that comes from an article by Clark from 2012.
Now, this is pa…
Your Upper Primary Phonics Catch-Up Action Plan
Transcript Summary
In the past, when we had struggling readers in our class, we'd do a benchmark assessment, identify reading levels, and try to support these students. In our small group rotations. But these days, with the growing awareness that guided reading, levelled texts and three queuing are no longer supported, upper primary teachers are asking exactly what am I supposed to do? Well, we here at Jocelyn Seamer Education have the answer. In today’s episo…
What does 'authentic text' really mean in the Australian curriculum?
Transcript Summary
When the words predictable texts were removed from the Australian curriculum in 2022, supporters of structured literacy cheered very loudly. For years, arguments against the inclusion of predictable or levelled text were met with the response, "But it says in the curriculum that children should be using them," and you'd think that having those words removed from the curriculum would be the end of the discussion, but no. The reason that this d…
What goes into the Upper Primary Literacy Block?
Transcript Summary
For a very long time, we have focused exclusively on what goes into the early years literacy block and upper primary teachers, it is your turn. One of the questions in the Facebook group and other places is: exactly what should my literacy block look like in years three to six? And I have to say that finding the perfect literacy block can feel like chasing a magical unicorn through an enchanted forest so that you can make a wish. We fervently …
Why It's So Scary to Let go of Benchmark Assessment
Transcript Summary
Benchmark assessments are something that have been in schools forever in a day, and they've come to be understood as a way for us to track student growth and progress through their reading development. The challenge with a benchmark assessment is that they are usually written to align with a series of levelled texts that will be represented by a number or a letter and, unfortunately, they don't actually measure the thing that we think they do…
Why it's so scary to let go of guided reading
Moving from a guided reading small group approach to reading instruction means embracing a whole new literacy block structure. We are moving to one that seeks to maximize adult-led instructions, time on task, and the number of successful learning trials. And we are not doing this simply because it's the next shiny thing or because that's what someone told us. We are making this move to a more explicit approach because that's what the research tells us is the mos…
Should I Go Rogue?
At one time or another, most teachers have gone rogue in their classrooms. We have been asked to do something that we don't want to do and thought, 'nope'. This doesn't impact things too badly when we've gone rogue about only 1 box of tissues from the office a time or not signing for that extra box of lead pencils, but it can have significant impacts when it comes to substantial areas of our teaching.
There are many reasons that teachers go rogue. They could…
How Many Feet Does Your School Have on the Bus?
This idea of the bus was something that occurred to me a few years ago. It was the idea that we're all moving in the same direction, that everybody is welcome and that we are part of a network of primary teachers and leaders committed to advocating for the right of every child to be t…
