Dedicated literacy educators are up for the challenge

Saturday, 20 June 2009 at 9:05 pm

I’ve just returned from a week away in central Queensland. Whilst away, I visited Blackwater, Rockhampton and Maryborough and had the wonderful opportunity to work with more than one hundred and fifty teachers and teachers’ aides across primary and high schools.

I am always excited to witness the dedication our educators bring to the role and wanted to share a few of many highlights for me.

Before starting the first workshop, a principal approached me and asked me to stress the importance of explicit teaching. He made the comment, “Every minute we are not explicit is a minute lost for our students.” I was elated. Many of you have heard me stress the importance of identifying a teaching point and then “hammering it home”. We need the “Aha” moment for every student and we’re more likely to get it if there is absolute clarity about our message.

After the workshop I spoke to a high school maths teacher who was greatly enthused about moving forward with some new ideas about teaching maths. I was concerned, however, that it may be difficult for her to apply some learning to mathematics, so I broached this with her. It was a goose bump moment for me to hear her say, “I am changing the way I do things. It doesn’t matter what we teach, we all teach literacy.”

The next day I was delighted to work with a most engaging, committed and highly professional group of teachers. Their enthusiasm was evident as practices were shared, questions were asked and a rich group dynamic quickly developed.

Over lunch I chatted to a high school teacher, eager to free up Shakespeare for his students. We looked at a number ways he could scaffold his students to unpack the text using a basic reading process model, built around developing background knowledge and followed by rich conversations with specific comprehension foci. After the workshop, we sat together to follow up our lunch box chat and I saw that he had been busy sketching pages of organisers and notes to accompany our earlier discussion. As we continued our conversation, we mapped out a range of visual supports to build strategic behaviour for both decoding and comprehending the text. As he left I thought, “Wow, these kids are going to have a ball with this and so will he!”

Onward we travelled to Maryborough for two more fabulous days. More educators dedicated to leaving no stone unturned for our students. Gotta love it!

Imagine my delight to discover that one of Education Queensland’s ex-literacy managers was along for the day. Very exciting for me and what a wonderful bonus for others attending.

I’m now home. I’m knackered. But I’m invigorated from sharing ideas with like minds. Sincerest thanks to those who actively engaged in conversations over the course of the workshops. The students need focused talk time to build, consolidate, extend or challenge their learning and so do we.

by Angela Ehmer

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