February 2009

Some exciting things are happening right now that we'd like to share with you.

In this issue we look at:

• New workshops
• Macmillan publishing: Partnerships in Learning
• Results from our survey of educators in October - December 2008
• Pyjama Angels
• What's coming up in 2009

Happy reading
Angela

New workshops

We are very excited to announce some new workshops in 2009 in response to your feedback. We’d also like to thank you for your participation in our 2008 Survey as this data is used to assist us in planning for your professional development needs and preferences.

Struggling Readers and Writers

In Term 1 we are offering a new full day workshop, Struggling Readers and Writers. This workshop investigates the reasons that some students struggle and provides practical strategies for planning and implementing instruction. Over the day we will address oral language, reading, comprehension, fluency and spelling.

Whilst this workshop is aimed at teachers and teachers’ aides working with struggling students across the primary school, the skills and strategies presented are extremely valuable for early years’ teachers aiming to implement best practice with beginning readers and writers.

We are excited to offer articipants attending this workshop a copy of our newest publication, Supporting Readers and Writers, to assist in implementing the strategies and activities discussed at the workshop.

Guiding Writers’

We are also offering a new after school workshop in response to those wanting to attend our full day writing workshop, but who were unable to be released from school. We have drawn together a few highlights from the full day including:

• characteristics of quality writing
• using data to inform instruction
• a few crafting tips

We have received such wonderful feedback about our blackline masters for reading and writing, that we are giving one copy of our popular book Mind Maps, Organisers & Planners for Writing to each participant attending the Guiding Writers' Workshop.

View our Workshop Calendar for details about these workshops in your area.

Macmillan publishing: Partnerships in Learning

We are thrilled to continue our positive partnership in learning with Macmillan Publishing. We recently presented at the Macmillan State Conference and authored three new texts to be included in the Macmillan Teacher Resource collection.

Later this year Macmillan Publishing will launch the three new books as part of their popular All You Need to Teach series. This particular series will focus on reading comprehension. The books will cater to students across the primary years: All You Need to Teach Comprehension Ages 5 – 8, Ages 8 – 10 and Ages 10+.

Each All You Need to Teach Comprehension book contains lessons with accompanying texts, background notes, rubrics, literature circle bookmarks, blackline masters and task cards. All black line masters and task cards have been designed to suit a range of other texts you may use, as well as those in the All You Need to Teach Comprehension series. These books are designed for teachers on the go and contain reproducible material to support the teaching for comprehension strategies.

Results from our 2008 survey of educators

In November and December 2008, we conducted a survey of our site visitors on a number of issues. A great response from educators provided useful data to help us plan our services for 2009 and beyond.

A short summary of the feedback the survey revealed includes:

• 41% of you said there is not a consistent approach to teaching literacy across your school
• 35% indicated that guided reading is not taught across years 1-7 in your school
• 97% said literacy is a priority across your school
• 68% were interested in attending a Saturday workshop

Your feedback has also prompted us to develop four new workshops for 2009 (a couple of these are outlined above). Two new full-day workshops and two new after-school workshop will be available in 2009 along with our most in-demand workshops from 2008.

You also told us you’d like to see video demonstration lessons on this site and some ‘how to’ tutorials. We also hope to provide some of these in 2009.

Congratulations to Denise Gibson of Albany Creek SHS, winner of the $50 book voucher for participating in the 2008 survey. Thanks again to all of you who took part.

Pyjama Angels

As you may know, we lend our support to the Pyjama Foundation. It was our recent pleasure to conduct a session for a new group of Pyjama Angels, a group of individuals volunteering time on a weekly basis to read to children in foster care.

With only eight per cent of foster children achieving average literacy levels by the age of seven and only 25 per cent graduating high school, foster children are amongst our most vulnerable children.

The Pyjama Foundation is the creation of Bronwyn Sheehan, recently awarded Queenslander of the Year. After lots of hard work and dedication, there are now 500 Angels spending 2 hours each week reading, playing and talking to foster children of all ages.

Each time we present to the Angels we meet a new group of enthusiastic men and women eager to share their time, energy and passion for learning and life with their assigned child. We are approached at every session to discuss the needs of individual children, gather tips for helping with school and homework and to find additional ways to provide assistance and support.

It is always a privilege to meet with the Pyjama Angels and we look forward to our next group presentation with them on Saturday 27 June, 10am to 12.00pm at Sunnybank Library.

If you or someone you know is interested in supporting this charity or becoming an Angel, please visit the Pyjama Foundation’s web site. They’d love to hear from you. Alternately you can support the Foundation's 2009 fund raising effort by encouraging your students to participate in their online read-a-thon, sponsored by Macmillan Education, Crayola and The Shak.

What's coming up in 2009

As well as the two new workshops featured above, we are currently developing two more workshops for delivery later in the year. The first of these is the full-day 'Teaching Literacy (Strategies for the Expert Teacher)' which will be aimed at experienced teachers with the goal of taking your teaching of literacy to the next level. This workshop will be partnered with the after-school workshop 'Explicit Teaching of Reading', looking at the most effective strategies and techniques for teachers of literacy.

We also plan to produce some short instructional videos as a guide to modelling literacy teaching practices.

Also be sure to check out our blog occasionally - we're keen to share our thoughts on literacy related issues and we welcome your contributions in the comments.

That's it for our first Newsletter of the year. We look forward to bringing you more news during 2009.
Angela Ehmer