What are the building blocks of making meaning? How do we transform ‘sensory input’ into language through gestures & movement, visuals, sounds and texts to express our experiences, feelings, values and beliefs?
Here I outline my plan to use dramatic play to strengthen the ground work by which ‘weak readers’ feel a sense of achievement by concentrating on learning decoding skills.
What could an infusion of dramatic play add to teaching and learning? I outline seven units of work through which I demonstrate how dramatic play can build a trifecta of teaching and learning effects in enhancing literacy skills, sustaining motivation and practising academic rigour in our classrooms.
How does cognitive science add to our understanding of role play in teaching and learning? What does it tell us about to most effectively use it in classroom contexts?
There would be little disagreement on the importance of broadening and deepening the vocabulary of young people. In the preface … Read more
I think about the last two periods on a Friday when I teach Core Literacy to my Year Sevens. The list of challenges looms ever higher: the absentees I need to follow up on, the many requests to have a drink or go to the toilet, and the overwhelming, relentless effort I need to enact to help students remain focused on the planned work.
I’ve been teaching on the Literacy team for two years. If one word comes to mind about my participation, it is the careful way the scope and sequence of the programme reveal themselves. There is nothing imposed on me that I can’t relate to my students in terms of how the strategies work towards making them great readers via comprehension skills, oral language skills, mental models, and so much more.
The 1998 primary arts publication The 1998 primary arts publication I worked on, which brought together a number of cross-curricular … Read more