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Moving Students From One Curriculum Level To Another In Writing
Moving Students From One Curriculum Level To Another In Writing

This document is a list of writing strategies and skills that students need to be able to demonstrate proficiently if they are to move from:

  • Midway through Level 1 to the top of Level 1.
  • The top of Level 1 to the beginning of Level 2.
  • The top of Level 2 to the beginning of Level 3.

It has been developed in relation to the Levels 1-3 achievement objectives and indicators for English in The New Zealand Curriculum.

At the end of the document there are some instructional pointers for teachers to think about as they assist their students to progress through curriculum levels and sub-levels.

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recommended-picture-books
Picture Books For Reading And Writing (List #1)

This is a list of picture books (including sophisticated picture books) that I use to motivate and engage Year 1-10 students in reading and writing.

A second list is also available here

For reading, I use them as ‘read to’ books and sometimes as models of what good writers can do. 

For writing, I use them to establish writing ideas and content for and with students.

You may wish to review the Murray Talks videos for teacher guidance and the Video Lessons for some ‘follow along’ content.

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recommeded-picture-books2
Picture Books For Reading And Writing (List #2)

This is the second list of picture books (including sophisticated picture books) that I use to motivate and engage Year 1-10 students in reading and writing.

The first list is available here, also as a free download.

For reading, I use them as ‘read to’ books and sometimes as models of what good writers can do. 

For writing, I use them to establish writing ideas and content for and with students.

You may wish to review the Murray Talks videos for teacher guidance and the Video Lessons for some ‘follow along’ content.

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english-spelling
Spelling: Some Ideas

This document has been designed to give schools some guidance on:

  • The place of spelling within the writing programme.
  • What students of all year levels ought to be able to demonstrate as proficient spellers.
  • The stages of students’ spelling development.
  • Some spelling ideas and activities for teachers of junior students and middle-senior students.

A predominant message is that spelling needs to be deliberately and strategically taught within the writing programme as a basic courtesy for the reader. 

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reading skills
Reading Skills For Year 1-9 Students

This is a list of the reading skills and strategies that I believe most students at each year level should be able to demonstrate, given good teaching.  

It is closely aligned to The New Zealand Curriculum, the Literacy Learning Progressions, the English Language Learning Progressions and e-asTTle Reading.

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Beginning The School Literacy Year
Beginning The School Literacy Year: Some Notes For Teachers

It is surely every teacher’s desire and goal to seek to enable and create success for their students in the classroom. 

The beginning of the new school year can be daunting for students, as well as teachers, with so many new faces, curriculum changes, excitement and a plethora of other distractions.

With regard to literacy goals, it is important to establish a clear understanding from the outset with your students.

You should aim, within the first fortnight of the new school year, to communicate clearly with your students that: 

  • ‘Our job during the year is to become the best readers and writers we can be’.
  • ‘Reading and writing can be fun as well as challenging’.
  • ‘I need to work with you to find out what you’re already good at and what you need to work on so that I can help you’.

In this respect, this document’s aim is to assist teachers by providing typical questions they can ask themselves when preparing for the school literacy year.

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child-writing
Writing Skills For Year 1-9 Students

This is a list of the writing skills and strategies that I believe most students at each year level should be able to demonstrate, given good teaching.  

It is closely aligned to The New Zealand Curriculum, the Literacy Learning Progressions, the English Language Learning Progressions, e-asTTle Writing and the New Zealand Curriculum Exemplars: Writing.

It has been developed around the following headings:

  • Content.
  • Sentence Formation.
  • Structure.
  • Vocabulary and Language Features.
  • Spelling.
  • Punctuation.
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murray-gadd-reading-skills
What Is Quality Writing?

Teachers need to understand what constitutes quality writing if they are to move their students towards it.  In this document I:

  • Justify why knowledge of quality writing by students is so important.
  • Suggest ways of getting students to identify quality writing.
  • Offer my own thinking about what I’m looking for in the best of student writing.  
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