English Literacy
In literacy, I believe that students need a combination of explicit, structured teaching, exposure to high-quality literature, and plenty of opportunities to write for different purposes. Targetted feedback is key to raising attainment so I use a range of technologies and approaches to provide this in a timely manner.
I believe in the importance of 'Reading to' students as a way of developing their love of literature and encouraging reading for pleasure. Two books I have read to students recently were 'Scarlet and Ivy: The Lost Twin' and 'The Last Kids on Earth'. I then developed activities based around these books. I also decided to use the text 'All Summer in a Day' by Ray Bradbury as part of a unit on science fiction and developed literacy activities around this powerful story.
Spelling - I believe in teaching the code of spelling with students learning how to write phonemes in different ways and learning spelling rules. I have created my own word lists and dictations for spelling phonemes. I have also reworked the 300 high frequency word list into three levels organising the words into phoneme groups and creating placement tests to level the students in my class.
Grammar - Understanding grammar is key to students being able to write coherently with appropriate punctuation and a variety of sentence structures. It is also very important when working with students for whom English is a second language. I explicitly teach grammar in my class.
I have been teaching on Zoom now for the last year and a half. I therefore have a number of Zoom videos of my teaching. I taught a biography unit as part of our Literacy and Language programme at Nun Academy. Below is a lesson where we looked at fronted adverbials and then the students were expected to demonstrate their ability to start sentences this way in their biographies. Technology tools were incorporated with the use of Sutori to create an attractive timeline. Students were given models of best practice and checklists for self-assessment of their work.
Key teaching moments during a 50 minute Zoom class showing a small selection of teacher and student interaction. Note that I have edited the video to remove images of students and deleted audio where names were used.
A model I created for the students of a timeline of Daniel Radcliffe's life using Sutori
An example of student work at the end of the unit. These were marked using this checklist.
