ecl310jg99-blog

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WEEK 9: Multimodal text

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WEEK 8: Assessing reading 

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WEEK 7: Resources to help develop my writing goal 

Resource two

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WEEK 7: Resources to help develop my writing goal

My goal is to improve my understanding of teaching spelling by exploring various strategies. 

1. Michelle Hutchinson’s SMART Spelling approach

SMART Spelling is broken down into five steps to address spelling words. These include:

S - (Say) Saying the word out loud (teacher and students).

M - (Meaning) Using the word in a sentence.

A - (Analyse) Break down the word. 

R - (Remember) What part of the word do you need to remember? 

T - (Teach) Spelling the word verbally. 

Michelle has a course that teaches this approach to educators. She also has a manual that teachers can use to implement this approach. Within the manual, there is a scope and sequence for levels foundation - 6 and highlights what each level are aiming to achieve. This is a very clear and useful approach for teachers to use when teaching students spelling. The link to her website is above if you would like to learn more about her approach. 

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Reading time is a blog styled website that is in partnership with The Children’s Book Council of Australia. The website is based around trusted, academic book reviewers who input their suggestions and discuss current quality literature ranging from early year readers until adult readers. When you click on a review it explains a short summary of the book; it highlights the teaching potential the book has and what concepts that could be drawn from the text to educate students. Featuring on some of the book suggestions, there are links to teacher notes that connect directly to the text. This is a great resource where teachers can gain ideas for literacy lessons and make direct connections to the designated text. The website is easy to navigate, is frequently updated with new texts and literature reviews and offers a wide range of good quality literature for teachers to source. 

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Week 2: Writing poster

The ‘Somebody, wanted, but, so, then’ strategy helps to prompt students when they are writing narrative summaries. This works as a guide to indicate to students what is necessary information to add into a summary. The term ‘sum’ is used as an acrostic poem to identify three key points for students to remember when they need to sum up their reading. 

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Week 1: My childhood memory

As a child I found it quite difficult to pick up a book and read. I had trouble locating books that sparked my interest and that is why I never felt motivated to read. It wasn’t until I was exposed to Roald Dahl books around year 4/5 that I begun to enjoy reading. In particular I enjoyed reading the story of Matilda, simply because Roald Dahl’s creative writing style made it easy for me to understand and connect with this storyline. I also really liked Miss Honey as a character and a teacher, of which one day I knew I wanted to be a similar teacher to. As a young child, my mother would read books to me before bed every day and this continued until I was reading independently. I remember having a lot of difficulty with comprehension at school. I needed to read out loud to ensure I had full focus on the book or re-read sections to make sense of what was happening. 

I think as a teacher, it is important to have informal read out loud conferences to help gauge an understanding of your students reading abilities, practice their speaking skills, and it provides an opportunity for students to practice comprehension by having a teacher prompt and ask questions about their text. It also offers opportunities to engage with your students and continues building positive relationships. As a teacher, it is key to acknowledge that all of your students will have differing degrees of experience and prior knowledge when it comes to reading. Regardless, I aim to scaffold my student’s learning by providing positive experiences associated with reading, for example, finding books that spark their personal interests.