Supporting Students in Reading

Professional Learning for Teachers’ Aides, Assistants and Support Officers

Overview

Teachers’ Aides, Support Officers and Teaching Assistants are a powerful, yet sometimes under-used resource in schools. This new professional learning opportunity for Teacher Assistants and other support officers recognises and builds on this potential. It introduces support personnel to current research which relates directly to their core business. This workshop will address the key areas currently identified as high-yield practices and unpacks these to promote consistency of implementation between teachers and support staff. Academic and scientific ‘jargon’ which may be unfamiliar or difficult to understand will be explained using learner-friendly language and translated to texts used across various year levels.

This new and practical, professional learning opportunity will build awareness and understandings about literacy processes, as these relate to primary-school students. Attendees will learn the fundamentals of literacy learning as this relates to the English language and which is based on the research into neuroscience, cognitive, developmental, and behavioural psychologies, special education, linguistics, and high-yield instructional practices.

Through a series of practical tasks and applications, attendees will relate their learnings about key research findings to solving simple and complex words in reading and spelling, as well as learning and applying the meta-language . . . ‘what to say’ prompts which focus students’ attention on analysing and synthesising words and comprehending texts. This workshop will explore:

• the areas of the brain which network when spelling and decoding, including what to say and do to support individuals and small groups
• the nuances of English spelling and how effective codebreaking and comprehension require two critical understandings
  • phonological processing, or mapping phonemes to graphemes
    • includes a step-by-step instructional guide for orthographic mapping and guidance in applying
  • awareness of the morphological structure of English
    • includes practical tasks
• important ‘what to say’ prompts for solving words in spelling and reading
• the importance of conversation in building the receptive knowledge around vocabulary and grammar and to consolidate comprehension

Learnings from the day will be discussed and applied to common models of reading support. Participants will learn important ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ reading strategies they should use when supporting:

• individuals (Support-A-Reader, or equivalent)
• small groups

Learn how to create your own handy toolkit for working with students!

Cost

$225 + GST per person (Limited spaces are available so please register early.)
RSVP: Five (5) working days prior to workshop

Arrival tea and coffee, morning tea and lunch will be provided.

Should you attend?

This workshop is suitable for Teachers' Aides. Teachers or Administrators supporting Teachers' Aides must also register as participants if attending.

Where and when?

See our workshop calendar for locations, venues and dates.