Ms.Appleby's ECL310 Blog

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Reader's Theatre The King of the Forest JLGIS Grade 4-Mango

Week 9 Post  I chose this video because I think working in groups collaboratively and deriving words with actions, through oral speech, and with gestures allows students to deepen their thinking about the text. Developing texts into a performance such as readers theatre is a fun and creative way to help build fluency and comprehension. I would use this as a mentor in a literacy unit to show how texts can be performed in a fun and engaging way. It allows students to showcase their work in a creative way and gain confidence with linguistics, audio, and gestural modes to improve comprehension. 

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Listen to Week Eight Tumblr Post by S.A #np on #SoundCloud

Hi, Welcome to my week eight Tumblr post. 
I hope you don’t notice that I say week 7 instead of week 8 in the audio! 🤦🏼‍♀️ Whoops! Must be that time of the semester... 🤷🏼‍♀️

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Week 7

This week I have used two resources to help teachers to improve their skills about language, literacy and literature. I have provided ways in which teachers can effectively and confidently incorporate aspects of their personal knowledge to enhance classroom learners. Personal knowledge can be developed via many resources including textbooks, podcasts, websites, Personal Development sessions, YouTube clips, webcasts and many more. Today I have chosen two websites - both vary in what they offer and provide invaluable information for our professional and personal development.   1. The first is Reading Rockets - https://www.readingrockets.org/audience/teachers

Reading rockets provides a variety of webcasts, knowledge about reading basics from ‘awareness to comprehension’, professional development courses, writing samples, development of phonological skills and so much more! Be sure to take some time to have a look at this resource, it has heaps to offer!

2. Another goal of mine is to become more confident in teaching comprehension.Teachstarter - https://www.teachstarter.com/au/unit-plan/applying-reading-comprehension-strategies-unit-plan/

Teachstarter provides information and a unit about comprehension strategies. Teachstarter is a fantastic online resource which provides ideas for lesson plans, units and ways in which to cater for individual learning abilities through differentiation.

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Scholastic is resource that I believe would help teachers source quality children’s literature. The page ‘Books and Authors” provides a selection of books from all year levels. As well as listing a wide range of books, it also provides teachers with lesson plans and extension activities for various books. The website provides options to choose guided reading books, most popular books, weather, character building books, chapter books, non-fiction guided reading, subject orientated books (science and maths) and it even has a bundle of books that get kids up and moving! It is easy to navigate and includes professional development books for teachers. This resource would be extremely helpful for teachers to find texts easily and fast! Not to mention the quality of the texts chosen to ensure the students learning is enhanced and supported.

Press play to see a glimpse of this great resource! ▶️

Reference:

Scholastic Inc, 2019, Books and Authors, Scholastic, retrieved 4th August 2019, < https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books-and-authors/>

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Week 2 Post

A series of posters were used and referred to when my students from my previous practical placement were writing their persuasive texts. This particular poster, along with “strong word list”, “PEEL sentence starters”, and “narrative vs persuasive posters” sourced from TeachThis.com.au (2007), were all very helpful when the 3/4 class were completing their persuasive pieces. I chose the “Persuasive sentence starters” during my lessons as it provided students with a quick and reliable guide. The poster is simple yet visually appealing and very straight forward for all students to understand.

It was very successful as students accurately incorporated various sentence starters throughout their persuasive piece. I am a huge advocate for anchor charts within the classroom as I think they support student learning and are fantastic resources that students can refer to at any given time throughout the lessons.

Reference: TeachThis, 2007, Resources, retrieved 1st August 2019, <https://www.teachthis.com.au/search?category=Resources&sort=newest>

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Week 1 Post

Growing up, reading felt more like a chore than a hobby. I often had to re-read what I had just read to understand the text. I read because I knew I had to and rarely for the mere enjoyment it could bring. It wasn’t until my grade 4 teacher introduced the class to Andy Griffith Books. I remember when my teacher read to us ‘Just Tricking’. It is told from the perspective of Andy Griffiths as a young boy who was mischievous and cheeky. I loved this book as a student because it was filled with short stories that were fun, humorous and enjoyable. The chapters were visually engaging as they included various cartoon illustrations within the text. In conjunction with the great illustrations and text, my teacher used various tones and voices. She was always enthusiastic toward our classroom reading and was able to use this and her expressions to bring the stories to life! I was able to envision the story as it unfolded which was very rare for me. It helped me build a healthy relationship with reading and I aspire to bring this energy into reading the book because I believe the love for reading can be mirrored. My teacher used voice and expression to ensure we remained engaged. I never wanted my teacher to put the book down. Through this, I realised how important it is to ensure students can relate or become engaged with the book in order to love it and want to continue to read it. I hope to instill the same feeling in my future classroom.