If you are doing any sort of a road trip with your family this year, the question ‘Are we there yet?’ is one which might become very familiar. The landscape can slip by while we concentrate on our driving, on the need to stop for food or fuel or toilet breaks, and the car talk,…
Two recent publications from the Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA) have contributed to the topical subject of classroom talk, or ‘dialogic teaching’, which emphasises the ‘natural affordances and opportunities that dialogue gives children to learn.’
Written text can be like music – creative and exciting, thrilling and moving.
The voices and ideas of the teachers, academics, writers and children at PETAA’s ‘Professional Learning Intensive’ “Writing the Future” radiated from the ‘pages’ of their presentations.
Total immersion indeed. PETAA’s ‘Professional Learning Intensive’ was described as presenting writing ‘to teachers in context’. It did that and more in this two days of professional learning for educators from all over the country.
Reading for inference, inferential thinking, begins well before children are required to draw meaning from written and visual texts at school. This type of thinking, making inferences about our world, is used all the time by everyone. We learn to make considered – and often not quite so considered – judgements and assumptions about people,…
The meaning of the term ‘literacy’ continues to be something of an enigma. It’s important to have an understanding of what constitutes literacy, and why we are so focused on it in our schools and the wider society.
It’s History Week in NSW: 1-9 September 2018. Formal activities include: NSW Premier’s History Awards, which start a little earlier on 31 August, and the Annual History Lecture and Awards on 4 September.
Becoming literate is not simply about knowledge and skills. Certain behaviours and dispositions assist students to become effective learners who are confident and motivated to use their literacy skills broadly.