Podcast and Blog
Teaching the ‘Top of the Rope’ with Mentor Texts
However, it is important to remember that the ‘top of the rope’ concepts also need to be taught explicitly. One of the best ways to teach this is through mentor texts. Mentor texts provide a wonderful stimulus for reading comprehension and writing instruction. You can teach many concepts through mentor texts including...…
Why Explicit Teaching is Student Centred
Knowledge is Critical, but Don’t Forget Skills
In considering how to create sustained, effective practice, I have developed the Teaching Success Framework. There are 8 parts of the framework…
The Best Advice I’ve Ever Been Given
How Shared Vision Contributes to Collective Impact
Making the Switch from Guided Reading to a Structured Approach
So many teachers have guided reading as the foundation of their reading instruction approach. With a growing understanding of structured literacy, many of us have seen that it’s time for a change. When making the switch from traditional guided reading, there are two components to consider.
The first thing to think about is the ‘what’.
Traditional Guided reading involved:
- Assessing students using benchmark assessment
- Grouping them based on this assessment
- Teaching lessons using levelled t…
Keeping Planning Simple
Keeping Planning Simple
Planning is one of the necessary, time sucking things that we do as teachers. I’m actually one of those nerdy people who like planning and curriculum design. It really floats my boat! BUT, what I don’t like is spending more hours planning and preparing than I spend teaching. I would much rather have easy ways to plan and prepare that leave me free to spend time on the fun stuff (like writing text based units using mentor texts) or watching Netflix. As a Teaching Pri…
Instruction to Reduce the Need for Small Groups
It’s not a secret that I’m not a fan of group rotations. The minute you divide up your students and put them into groups, you cut down the time students can experience fully guided instruction. However, I am aware that some students with additional needs do much better in small groups for various reasons. There are simply times when the range in our classes and lack of adult support means that small groups are the only option available to you.
But a wide range or doing it on your own doesn’t me…
6 Potential Roadblocks to Early Reading Results
So, you’ve adopted a structured approach to phonics but aren’t seeing the growth you had hoped for? This lack of growth could be evident in some, most or all students and leave you scratching your head, wondering what went wrong? This week, I’d like to point you in the direction of a few things that might need tightening to get those results you are looking for.
Reason #1 – Student focus is not what it could be
Our early years students are little people. Their ability to pay attention ofte…
Comprehension Strategies - Still a Thing?
I recently wrote a post about my impressions of the English component of Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum. You can find that post here. There is much to be celebrated in the update including the removal of references to predictable texts and 3 cueing strategies. In reading through the content descriptors, however, I was a little disappointed to see that comprehension strategies,
“such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising and questioning to understand and discuss texts list…