Literacy Solutions Blog

The 14th annual survey by the International Reading Association (IRA) outlines some interesting perspectives.

Each year the IRA conduct a survey to identify the perceived trends in literacy. The “What’s hot?” survey results for 2010 were released in the December/January issue of Reading Today. It must be noted that the term “hot” does not reflect what respondents view as important, but simply what is perceived …

Assisting Parents and Caregivers to Support Home Reading

Teachers know that parents make a world of difference to children’s literacy development and that support at home is crucial to developing attitudes to reading as well as practising and applying reading skills and knowledge.

As we move into the new year, schools will schedule parent information sessions to provide important insights about routines and procedures, expectations for learning …

As Education Queensland launches a new coaching initiative for qualifying schools, some of our finest literacy educators embark on a significant, new journey as literacy coaches. The role presents exciting opportunities, as well as the many challenges associated with supporting educators and school communities towards a shared goal of improved literacy outcomes for all.

Benefits of literacy coaching

The benefits of coaching and mentoring models …

Many schools are planning for 2010 and I was recently asked for my thoughts about the purchase of a particular commercially produced program.

As far as educational research suggests, many commercially produced programs are not indicative of best teaching practice and are therefore not endorsed by education bodies or organisations.

This is not to suggest however, that programs of this type cannot be used by teachers as …

Can six Little Secrets make a difference?

What makes for powerful reading instruction? Expert teachers of reading know why and how to plan for reading instruction that gets powerful outcomes for students.

They know what the Six Secrets are and very importantly, how to make them work in a classroom. So what are they? They are:

Explicit, data driven instruction
Differentiated, strategic problem solving with the right amount of …

I’m interested in your thoughts about the proposed summer and winter school programs to “catch up” under-achieving students.

A few issues spring to mind . . .

Is placing a greater workload on under-achievers the solution?
How will these students cope without a full break? Won’t these same students be exhausted from back to back terms with shorter breaks?
Does this suggest that we cannot provide a rich, quality …

Comprehension is built around a foundation of prior knowledge and will therefore differ for individuals. It is possible and likely for students within a single cohort to have different understandings of elements within the same text.

Factors contributing to a strong foundation of prior knowledge:

rich language environments, i.e. those in which there is a high volume of general and focused talk around a variety of topics; …

How do we improve reading outcomes for students? What do highly proficient teachers of reading do? Here’s my Top Ten list . . .

Gather regular, ongoing records using both formal and informal measures on continuous text; analyse strategic behaviour on errors and self-corrections, make observations about elements of prosody and fluency and assess comprehension; determine skills and knowledge controlled and absent; identify patterns of behaviour
Analyse …

I was recently in Canberra working with the Catholic Education Office Canberra-Goulburn to formulate a position statement and supporting document to align literacy practice across the diocese.

It’s enormously exciting to be involved in projects of this nature. Not only will this document address a framework outlining consistent literacy practice across all year levels, but it aims to:

clarify purpose and audience for all literacy learning
embed …

I recently wrote on the importance of intrinsically motivated readers. There is much to be gained from providing texts around students’ interests. How can we do this? The obvious answer is to ask and they’ll tell us. This works for most students, but you may have observed that some students don’t appear to know what they’re interests are. We only need to watch as …