2026 Posts LinkedIn Create Possibilities

LinkedIn Create Possibilities  

1. Share lessons and insights from real projects so people can see your expertise in action

 As a teacher and Literacy Consultant, I used picture books as models for literacy learning. What better way for children to learn text structures and language features than from an author who knows how genres (Narrative, Report, Explanation and more) are structured and how linguistic devices (similes, onomatopoeia, interesting verbs and more) are used to cause interest? After using many, many authors' books, below is my first children's book which I hope parents and teachers will use to further their children's literacy development.

 

 

2. Talk about challenges you've solved and what you learned along the way.

 My initial teaching years were as a contract teacher, which I disliked because I felt it inhibited my development as an effective teacher. When I became permanent, I was assigned to a low-economic school. I was encouraged by the Principal and Deputy Principal to undertake Reading Recovery study for a year. Can you imagine teaching behind glass while the Reading Recovery trainer and fellow teachers gave feedback? This year-long learning experience gave me  knowledge about  how children learn to read and write and think. It also gave me a Graduate Certificate in Literacy and Language Education.

 Reading Recovery training initially broadened my pedagogical knowledge and understanding of how children learn. Importantly, it fostered an appreciation of other knowledgeable theorists; their ideas influenced my work.

     3. Return to a few core topics consistently so your audience understands what you're  known for. 

 Marie Clay, a New Zealand professor, researched and implemented Reading Recovery.  New Zealand teachers initiated Guided Reading for older students. A group of teachers at our northern South Australian school did the same.

 Educators who influenced my pedagogy, definitely included Jean Piaget. 

Deconstructing and constructing texts in front of the children certainly built student knowledge.

I could not have operated without Don Holdaway, a New Zealand professor, who instigated Shared Reading. Big print involved whole class reading. Children learnt how varied texts were structured and they learnt about language features, conventions and spelling - how words work. 

 Robin Alexander, a British professor's idea of Dialogic learning, where the teacher / child and child / child are involved in equal talk.

 

      4. Pay attention to the conversations, introductions, and opportun...

 I always remember a conversation with Professor Robyn Ewing, (Sydney University) who specialized in drama, and educating students using drama. Following this, I read  a teaching resource book about process drama, where students engage in drama to make meaning. This is especially important for students with learning difficulties or those first learning English. With drama, students visualize the context, make connections, and use technical, descriptive and  persuasive verbal language.  

So you see learning happens by being aware of other teachers' work and extensively reading teacher resource material. 

5. Highlight the work behind the outcome instead of only sharing the result  

An important aspect of teaching is assessment set against criteria to evaluate and make teaching and learning decisions. For example, Reading Recovery has set reading levels as its criteria. These levels not only allow a child to read successfully at a certain level, but they are also an assessment tool. Because of Running Records and Miscue Analysis, the teacher is able to view what is happening and what action to take.   Because readers move up levels of difficulty, tracking children's progress requires continual assessment. For Reading levels, I introduced Excel to the teachers I was working with in the USA. Some principals assumed responsibility for keeping this record. 

Excel is not necessary. But assessment and keeping a record is necessary.  Writing, for example, a pre-planned Outcomes Profile involves Texts, Contextual understandings, Text structure and Language features, and Conventions (the latter being punctuation, paragraphing). After a period of study, the teacher concludes the genre study and sets a task for all children in the class to complete. The teacher examines each child's writing against the pre-planned Learning Outcomes Profile. 

Assessment should be ongoing as the children learn a particular text structure, for example, individual conferences or sitting with groups. Informal notes are made. Formative assessment can reveal confusions or misunderstandings that can be addressed immediately.  

What changed for higher grade levels was the complexity: the thinking required to tackle more difficult topics, the genre structures, for example argument/counter argument, the vocabulary and the more sophisticated language features needed to fulfil more complex tasks, as well as the knowledge and independence required to access resources. 

I was sad to find that some teacher- trainer students had difficulty writing their essays. But giving them the structure of the initial paragraph including the points that will be covered and then taking each of those points to discuss in the following paragraphs, really improved their understandings and writing. I was no longer sad!