Podcast and Blog

Subscribe to the Podcast

00:00:00
Introduction
Hello there, and welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast. My name is Jocelyn Seamer, and I am so pleased to be here with you today. I'm not recording this episode from home; I am, in fact, on the lands of the Wurundjeri Willum people in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. I'm here for three gorgeous days, a full day of PL tomorrow with the school and then two days in the classroom with teachers and leaders having a look at how this school c…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss that helping children build comprehension, background knowledge and vocabulary is crucial. This can can be done by aligning content areas with English lessons or using simple non-fiction texts before fiction, creating meaningful connections between subjects.

Video Transcript

Hey there, my name is Jocelyn, and it's time for a tip. Background knowledge is incredibly important if we're going to help children build comprehension. Comprehen…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss daily review in the classroom, and how it is important and can be used to prepare students for upcoming lessons, helping struggling learners by reinforcing previously taught concepts to better manage new material.

Video Transcript

Daily review is an incredibly important and valuable structure to have in your classroom. But had you thought about the fact that you can use that review time to frontload for extension and learning to come? Here…

Subscribe to the Podcast

Well hello. Thanks so much for joining me in this episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast, which is part two of our two-part series about shifts to make in a structured approach to literacy in years three to six.

In our last episode, I shared guidance for adjustments that we can make in word-level knowledge and spelling instruction and in how we choose text and run a reading lesson. In this episode, we'll continue our exploration of shifts in practice, focusi…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss using visuals to gain students' attention and enhance communication, especially for those with autism, auditory challenges, etc., by keeping them handy on a lanyard.

Video Transcript

So it's Tuesday and that means there's another tip coming your way. Being a teacher is really hard and getting children's attention can be one of the most challenging things that we do. Today I want to talk about the power of visuals to do that.

If you have a…

Subscribe to the Podcast

Hi there, welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast. I'm Jocelyn, and it's wonderful to welcome you to this latest episode recorded here in Pataway, Burnie.

Right now in Tasmania, it is almost mid-winter, the Ugg Boots are out, the fire is lit and we are snuggling up against the cold. That doesn't mean that the hard work of supporting teams in their structured literacy journey stops, though.

In the last episode of the podcast, I shared a suggestion of the ord…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss encouraging students to represent their knowledge at their current transcription level, rather than forcing them to write full texts.

Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Tip. When we're working with our young writers or writers of any age at all, it can feel like there's a huge amount of pressure to get everybody writing a full text, whether they have the transcription skills for that or not. One of the ways that you can shif…

Subscribe to the Podcast

Hello and welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast coming to you from Pataway, Burnie, the lands of the Palawa people.

The road of robust, explicit, structured teaching is not an easy one.  It is full of bumps and sharp turns that can take us by surprise. I say the road of and not the road to, because there is no magical destination where everything is effortless. There is no finish line we cross and then all challenges end.

Helping our teams grow their prac…

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss being careful with assessment in phoneme grapheme correspondence, stressing not to prematurely label students and to ensure they can quickly and confidently connect graphemes to phonemes during evaluations.

Video Transcript

Hello there. Welcome to another Tuesday Tip. My name is Jocelyn. When we're assessing our students, one of the things we need to really be careful of is to make sure that we don't say they have something until they actually…

Subscribe to the Podcast

Hello, hello and welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast. My name is Jocelyn, I'm so very pleased to bring you this episode direct from Pataway Burnie, the home of the Palawa people in gorgeous Tasmania.

In last week's episode of the podcast, I shared some thoughts on ways that you can get ready for changes that are coming in the early years reading space. If your school already has a systematic, structured approach to early reading in place, well you're all …