FROM THE ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL
CURRICULUM DAYS
WRITING
Monday’s Curriculum Day was dedicated to learning about the 6 +1 Traits of writing. Over the past 2 years, we have committed to developing student writing by encouraging students to write for an uninterrupted and sustained period of time (our Big Write) and to enhance the writing piece by improving VCOP. (The vocabulary choices we make, the connectives both within and between sentences, improving and varying the way we ‘open’ sentences and paragraphs and also ensuring the punctuation assists the reader).
Our professional learning on Monday was focused on looking at the 6 key traits of writing:
- The ideas
- The organisation of the text
- Conveying a sense of ‘voice’
- Sentence fluency – varying sentences to suit text
- Word Choice
- Conventions (grammar, spelling & punctuation)
- +1= Presentation- to attract readers
Our knowledgeable presenter, Sam Nicolaidis, made sure we had a sound understanding of all the traits and plenty of activities we could draw from to try within our classrooms.
As a result of our professional learning, each class will be introducing the traits over the next couple of terms and from there, we’ll be teaching students a range of strategies to improve each element.
SPELLING
Tuesday was dedicated to the learning of the SMART spelling approach developed by Michelle Hutchison. You’d be forgiven if you thought spending a whole day of spelling could be a bit dry, but our presenter kept us riveted as we learned about the 44 sounds of the English language, the core spelling rules and a simple system to teach this to students.
SMART is an acronym for the approach used:
S = say (say the word aloud)
M = meaning (know what the word means and in different contexts)
A = analyse – (the sounds used and sometimes learning the origin of the word helps)
R = remember – (identify the part in the word you find tricky and will need to remember)
T = teach (teach the spelling and the tricky part to your friend.
It was pleasing to see that this program was not about learning how to spell a random list of words, but rather a focus on learning spelling patterns and recognizing when those patterns might apply.
Every class will be involved in SMART spelling as we follow the format recommended within the resources. Students will have spelling homework and the opportunity to include words they’ve spelled incorrectly in their writing and would like to learn. These are called BOB words as they are corrected within a writing lesson at the ‘back of their book’.
Thank you to the school English Professional Learning Team for organizing the staff training in both spelling and writing. (with spelling Master: Michelle Hutchison)
PHOTOS
