Podcast and Blog

teaching

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S4 Ep16 - Summer Series - Research to the Classroom: Dyad Reading Part 1 (The Research)



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Hi there, welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast. It's Jocelyn here, and I am so pleased to welcome you this week.

One of the things I remember so vividly is being in school as a teacher and then leader, really wanting to keep up with readings and research and just not having the bandwidth to be able to do it. So we've started a brand new series for you, called Research to the Classroom. It's a series of three episodes on a topic, the first episode being dis…

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S4 Ep15 - Summer Series - Five Ways to Get Ready for the Coming Change



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Getting your team on the bus of consistent, explicit teaching in the early years is no easy task. A few years ago, I developed a course called Reading Success in the Early Primary Years and a little while later, published a book with the same name through Routledge, a well-known academic publisher. I am so pleased to announce that I'm running this highly practical online course again in 2025, to help your team build a more robust understanding of what structured l…

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S4 Ep14 - Guidance for Evaluating Impact

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Hello, hello, it's Jocelyn here with the final episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast for 2024, recorded right here on the lands of the Palawa people of Tasmania. I'm so pleased that you've been able to find time to join me amongst what I know is a hugely busy end of year schedule. Oh my, what a year it's been.

So much has happened and I know that many schools have felt the effects of the whirlwind of 2024.

Even as you celebrate positive changes that your…

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8

S4 Ep13 - Let's Talk Year 3-6 Reading Assessment and Grading



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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…

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Tuesday Tip - How to Answer Tough Questions in the Classroom

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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S4 Ep12 - The Secret to Grading Early Years Reading



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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 …

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Tuesday Tip - NICE Decision Making Framework

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…

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Tuesday Tip - Say Goodbye to Memorisation Strategies for Spelling

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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Podcast

S4 Ep10 - Instructional Spring Cleaning - Timers During Classroom Fluency Work



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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…

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Tuesday Tip - Who Decides What?

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…

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