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Hi there. Welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast recoded here in Tasmania, the lands of the Palawa people. I’m Jocelyn and I want to say a huge hello to all teachers and leaders grappling with assessment and reporting. Last episode of the podcast, I shared a perspective on reporting and grading early years reading without a benchmark assessment. In the old days, we assessed students, looked at the level and then used that to determine what A-E grade students r…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss how to capture kids' tricky questions about words while giving you time to find answers without interrupting the lesson flow.

Video Transcript

It's wonderful to engage children in talking about how words are constructed and what their histories are. But the scary thing as a teacher is when kids ask you questions you're not quite sure how to answer.

My suggestion for you is to have an iWonder board. This is a place in your classroo…

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Hi there, I'm Jocelyn and I'd like to welcome you to this episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast, recorded here on the lands of the Palawa people of Tasmania.

Here in Australia, it is Term 4 and the end of the school year is just a few weeks away. That means that teachers and leaders will be turning their attention to assessment and grading in preparation for report writing. So in this episode, I’d like to share some thoughts and suggestions on grading early …

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss how when decisions need to be made, use the NICE Framework to make smarter, more effective choices.

Video Transcript

Hey everyone, it's time for a Tuesday tip. There are so many demands on our time and our budget that it can be really hard to make decisions about what to do. So today I have a framework for you. It's the NICE Framework.

The N stands for need.

• How do we know we need this thing?
• What is our data telling us? 
• What a…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss that instead of teaching memorising words by letter names, teach kids to think about word construction.

Video Transcript

When we want to remember how to spell words, it's a common thing to try and remember how the word is spelled using letter names. That sometimes is really helpful, I still remember because as B E C A U S E. However, it is a much more productive way to think about words when we think about how they're constructed with orth…

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Well, hello there and welcome to this episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast recorded here in Tasmania, the land of the Palawa people.

In this latest mini-series, I've been doing a little bit of spring cleaning. So far, we've looked at the idea of classroom news for oral language development and one student coming up to the front of the room during phonics lessons.

Today, I'm sharing my thoughts on something that impacts all grades in the primary school, t…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss how building a whole school approach can be tricky, but clarity in resourcing, routines, and responses are key to figuring it out. Define what’s negotiable and what’s not to reduce misunderstandings and drive strong results.

Video Transcript

Hey everyone, it's Tuesday. So here's my tip. When we're trying to all get on the same page to build a whole school approach or a common approach, it can be really tricky because different people have diff…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss boosting learning by having kids add their own sound buttons and dots and dashes as they sound out words.

Video Transcript

Hey everyone, it's Tuesday. So it's time for a tip. You might've seen these sound buttons, or dots and dashes, used to help children understand the internal structure of a word. But I think instead of giving them the word with the markings already on them, it's a better use of time and more productive for the students, to write…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss the need to eliminate distractions and disruptions to maximise learning.

Video Transcript

Hey everyone, it's Tuesday, it's time for a tip. This is number three in our series about maintaining high engagement in low variance instruction. And our tip today is about eliminating distraction and disruption. Kids tapping pencils, having whispered conversations, the teacher talking way too long on things that are not relevant.

These all constitute extran…

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast. I’m Jocelyn and today I’m recording on the lands of the Palawa people here in Tasmania. In our last episode of the podcast, I shared 5 reasons that traditional professional learning probably isn’t leading to student outcomes. In that episode, I discussed cognitive biases that lead us to believe that we have more knowledge than we do. It turns out that people with less knowledge about a topi…