A few weeks ago I shared a blog post outlining 6 reasons every teacher should be using Turn and Talk in their literacy classrooms everyday. (Click here to read that post).  Now that I've shared some reasons on WHY you should be doing it every day, I thought it would be helpful to provide some tips on HOW to do it effectively. You see, there's a little bit more to it than just asking your students to turn the person next to them and start talking...   So, here’s my top 6 tips on getting the most out of this strategy in your literacy classroom:    1. Pose rich questions ..read more

We have a special guest writer on the blog this week: my very own daughter, Ashleigh Leung! Ash teaches a year 5 class at a large primary school (approx. 1000 students) in Melbourne's northern suburbs. Her school's population is quite diverse, with 61% of students having English as an additional language. I thought this made her the perfect choice to guest write a blog post on books teachers can use to celebrate Harmony Day / Week with their students. Over to you, Ash! Harmony Day is fast approaching on March the 21st. With this in mind, I wanted to share some books that I have tried and test ..read more

We’re only a couple of weeks away from International Women’s Day, so I thought now would be a good time to share some Australian-focused books you can read to prepare your students for this day. Of course, you can (and should) read these wonderful books all throughout the year as well.   What is International Women’s Day? Held on March 8th every year, International Women’s Day (IWD) is a day dedicated to celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the globe. It’s also a day to discuss, promote and celebrate advances in equality for women. Fun fact ..read more

Many things have changed in the world of literacy instruction over the years, research has developed, new teaching approaches have emerged and some older practices have -rightly- been shelved. One constant throughout all this though, has been the importance of oral language on literacy development: “Children who are surrounded by, and included in, rich and increasingly complex conversations have an overwhelming advantage in vocabulary development, in understanding the structures of language, and in tuning into the sounds of English.” (Konza, 2014). Despite decades of knowledge of its importa ..read more

Every writer has a 'writing history'. This history is made up of all the positive and negative writing-related experiences we’ve had in our lives. Importantly, each of these experiences has helped shape our current beliefs and attitudes towards writing.   Students’ writing beliefs For students, this means their past writing history can impact their current motivation, engagement and achievement in writing. Too many negative experiences in the past, may have them reluctant to put pen to paper now. A history of success, on the other hand, may have them desperate to share their writing with ..read more

In my last blog, I highlighted my top 6(ish) favourite adult reads for 2023. (Click here to read that post). Today I’m highlighting 6 of my favourite kids' reads for the year plus giving you one tried-and-tested teaching recommendation to implement in your classroom this week.     3 NOVELS When I looked back over all the books I read this year, I was surprised to see that my list of children’s novels was much smaller than previous years (thanks to my focus on reading French themed books before my holiday, as well as my heavy focus on professional reads). I’m sad to report t ..read more

 I often joke that I don’t read many books written for adults because I’m not mature enough to understand them, but here I am doing a top 6(ish) books for adults list. Look at me being a grown up! These six books are ones that have either kept me glued to their pages or kept me thinking about them long after I turned their last page. Each of them would make a great Christmas present for a friend or a terrific read over the summer school holidays.   Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros I’m not sure how I even came across this book. I was deep in my ‘I’ve run out of Sarah J Maas books depress ..read more

  Mentor texts are pieces of writing you can hold up as good in-practice examples for students. They enable you to ‘show’ your students, rather than ‘tell’ them what a specific craft move looks like and/or how it works. (Click here to read a blog post giving an example of how to use mentor texts to implement ‘show, don’t tell’). Mentor texts are a form of worked examples. They help unpack the end goal for your students by providing a scaffold that they can return to over and over again.  As one of the Victorian Department of Education’s 10 High Impact Teaching Strategies, worked exam ..read more

In my last blog, I shared some of the latest information available to teachers about dyslexia. (Click here to read the previous blog). Dyslexia is ‘an unexpected difficulty learning to read despite intelligence, motivation, and education’ (Shaywitz and Shaywitz, 2020, p. 39). As I said in that post, much has changed in the field of literacy instruction over the past 20 years, and it’s critical that us educators stay up to speed with these changes. When we know better, we can do better. In my last blog I explained that dyslexics experience issues at the phonologic level of their language proc ..read more

This post is dedicated to spreading the word about dyslexia.   There’s been a lot of progress made in this field since I was at university (and didn’t hear any mention of it) so hopefully this post will help bring more educators up to date with the latest information regarding dyslexia.   In this post I’ll be focusing on what it is, who can have it and the red flags educators should be looking out for.   In my next post, I’ll discuss how to get a student assessed for dyslexia, as well as suggesting accommodations you can make for any dyslexic students in your clas ..read more