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Beginning The School Literacy Year: Some Notes For Teachers
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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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Working With Under-Achieving Writers
This brand new eBook (written by Dr Murray Gadd) was released on 31st January 2020.
SEE INSIDE ~ READ EXTRACT BELOW – You can also download the sample PDF (8 pages)
This is an 82-page peer-reviewed eBook resource entitled Under-achievement Is Not Inevitable: Working Effectively With Struggling And Reluctant Writers.
It’s written as a reflection and discussion document for school / literacy leaders & teachers and considers different ways of working effectively with students (particularly Years 4-10) who are not always engaged in writing and/or who struggle as developing writers.
The Main Questions It Poses Are
- Why do some students (particularly boys and students from minority ethnic groups) under-achieve as developing writers?
- What are some key actions that teachers can undertake to help raise student engagement, progress and achievement levels in writing?
Who’s This For?
This resource was developed for two main audiences:
- For school/literacy leaders who could use the resource to lead professional inquiry and learning amongst their teachers. To this end, I have written a reading and discussion guide at the beginning and end of all sections. These often include actions for teachers to trial.
- For teachers who might want to use the resource to lead their own inquiry around the key questions posed in the resource. They could use the reading and discussion guide and trial some of the suggested actions as individual teachers.
How Can It Assist Literacy Leaders & Teachers?
The key actions are contextualised in real classroom situations and cover issues related to strategic use of:
- Teacher expectations;
- Topic selection;
- Instructional strategies;
- Classroom organisation and management;
- Classroom environment.
Have a look at some sample pages and think about how you could use it, especially if under-achievement in writing is an issue at your school.
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Price Per School / Institution
All prices are quoted in NZD
| – Individual Teacher / Purchaser: $19.99 |
| – School usage small (2 ~ 10 teachers): $90 |
| – School usage medium (11 – 20 teachers): $160 |
| – School usage large (21 – 30 teachers): $240 |
| – School usage large+ (31 or more teachers): $299 |
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Admin –
Thank you this is an amazing resource
Anne, Green Gables School
Cathi Knowles (verified owner) –
Thanks Murray, it is great to be reminded and reinvigorated!
Cathi, Thornbury School