Under the ‘umbrella’ of us all liking a good story, experts from a variety of organisations have come together to share their knowledge to affirm ‘the value of quality literature in classrooms’. This is a great resource to explore for our own learning, and to share with colleagues. The benefits will flow directly to our…
Classrooms are gradually developing a new ‘normal’, where time is still short and too many so-called ‘assessments’ – read tests’ – are requiring completion. In between, we carry on. One of the most rewarding, interesting, challenging and useful strategies for teaching history/geography/maths/etc, and the potential for addressing the vast majority of the outcomes in the…
It is so good to be back with face to face learning with PETAA, and a vocabulary workshop that I love working with. It seems almost natural that our teacher minds, our training, our interest in learning steer us into a deep interest in words. Some of the most interesting words and word ideas that…
Getting in early for PETAA’s 2022 Leading with Literacy Conference This year’s title is from babble to Batavia and beyond. When: October 21 and 22 from 8:30 am to 5:00pm AEDT Where: The University of Sydney Holme Building, Science Road, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 2050 Registration: is open now, for in-person or online attendance, or for…
The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) has released its English K-2 syllabus, replacing K-2 content in English K-10 Syllabus. The content is being delivered in some schools in 2022, and will be implemented in all NSW schools from 2023. There is so much support for this exciting time of implementation of a new syllabus. The…
A recent conversation with a teacher-in-training colleague has prompted this blog. My friend was given the task of preparing and delivering a 45-minute lesson on the question mark. This is pretty typical of the type of lesson we work with in normal circumstances. Now I can’t think of anything more tedious. As a topic for…
BREAKING NEWS: Oxford’s 2021 Word of the Year Is a Shot in the Arm is November 1’s New York Times headline. The article describes the context and reasoning behind the decision. It’s an entertaining read. “Vaccine,” already a common-enough word in English, more than doubled in frequency over the past year, as vaccines against the…
Australia publishes more children’s books per head of population than any other country. That’s something to be proud of, it’s something to celebrate, as we do every year in our classrooms, and with the Annual CBCA Book Week and book awards. Congratulations to all CBCA 2021 winners, and to honour book and shortlisted authors and…
Authors of successful texts ensure the purpose is clear, and appropriate for the intended audience. … a recent analysis of COVID-19 information on government websites found only two of the 52 documents examined could be read with relative ease. Most of the others were full of long sentences and unnecessarily difficult words where simple language…
The range of books for children to read about our world was pretty limited when I was at primary school, Thank goodness that’s changed!