reading instruction

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Transcript Summary

When the words predictable texts were removed from the Australian curriculum in 2022, supporters of structured literacy cheered very loudly. For years, arguments against the inclusion of predictable or levelled text were met with the response, "But it says in the curriculum that children should be using them," and you'd think that having those words removed from the curriculum would be the end of the discussion, but no. The reason that this d…

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Benchmark assessments are something that have been in schools forever in a day, and they've come to be understood as a way for us to track student growth and progress through their reading development. The challenge with a benchmark assessment is that they are usually written to align with a series of levelled texts that will be represented by a number or a letter and, unfortunately, they don't actually measure the thing that we think they do…

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At one time or another, most teachers have gone rogue in their classrooms.  We have been asked to do something that we don't want to do and thought, 'nope'.  This doesn't impact things too badly when we've gone rogue about only 1 box of tissues from the office a time or not signing for that extra box of lead pencils, but it can have significant impacts when it comes to substantial areas of our teaching.  

There are many reasons that teachers go rogue. They could b…

To say that it has been a big year here at Jocelyn Seamer Education is an understatement! Over the past 12 months, I have: 

• Submitted, finalised and released my first book with Routledge
• Delivered Teach Along courses to almost 1000 people
• Finished and released Reading Success in Action – Decoding 3
• Written around 50 blog posts
• Presented at 3 Sharing Best Practice conferences 
• Met and had dinner with Linnea Ehri (eek, so exciting!) and presented at an event alongside her
• Directly support…

As we approach the end of the 2022 school year here in Australia, you may have the good fortune to be asked what resources you would like to order for 2023. If that's the case, here are my top suggestions for items that can support you in your quest to move towards a structured literacy classroom.

1) A subscription to the Resource Room. The Resource Room is the only online membership dedicated solely to structured literacy. Sure, morning teas are lovely, but if you really want to support your te…

A quick peek at many a Facebook group just now will reveal that teachers are tired. Not just a little bit tired, but pooped, beat, spent and feeling plain old burnt out. Having just read that first sentence, you might then be wondering why I have decided to write about getting set up for the school year that hasn't even started yet. It's this simple. If you are anything like me, trying to rest and rejuvenate while the 'to do' list is swimming around in your head is a fool's errand. You lie down …

I love vegetable gardening. I love the excitement of seeing seeds germinate and little plants break through the soil. I love watching fruit and vegies grow and ripen to the point where they end up on our dining table. Over the years, I have bought many, many gardening books. I have a whole back catalogue of Grass Roots magazines as well as a book on square metre gardening, backyard self-sufficiency, growing vegetables in tropical climates (when I lived in the tropics), growing vegetables in a co…