Help when learning is hard
There was a time, way before our students were born, that we wrote our study notes in exercise books, loose-leaf pages or flash cards. These options are all still available, as well as newer technological options of typing notes in a word processor, creating online flashcards on an app or website, creating a notebook online.… Continue reading To Write or Type? Study Note Cheat Sheet
You’ve just finished all of your Year 11 Preliminary exams (congratulations!) and now your HSC "year" has begun. How did you go in Year 11? What are the lessons you'll take into Year 12 to be as successful as you can? The is the beginning of the last 12 months of your time at school,… Continue reading Get HSC Ready with an Exam Audit
There has been much emphasis on paragraph types with special names of OERO, MESL, TEEL, PEEL, PETAL .. Each teacher or school ascribes to a particular acronym and suddenly the composition of an essay has taken on a life of its own. I am fielding many calls and enquiries lately from parents and students feeling… Continue reading PEEL, TEEL, PETAL, MESL, OREO – a series of linked sentences by another name?
I am always amused when my students come to tutoring and when asked what is happening at school they reply"Nothing". Further promoting often yields the second part of this answer, "Our exams are finished, there's nothing else to do this term." After I smile, count to 10 and breath deeply ... we begin our work.… Continue reading Managing the “after exam” slump
A cute app to consolidate alphabetic knowledge and letter-sound correspondence. The plus is that an Australian voice can be selected (hence our vowels are intact) and close to foundation font has been used. Children select a robot as their avatar, a letter to start and are guided through some letter formation (tracing), sound identification (select… Continue reading Reading Jets A to Z
August 2015, "Practical Strategies to Support Students with Learning Difficulties in Mathematics" @ Learning Difference Convention at Rosehill, Sydney. Click here for copy of slides. Learning Difference Convention 2015
A tip I find very useful in both my own teaching and when recommending strategies for parents to encourage students with ADHD to write more (and write more cohesively) is what I refer to as "margin planning". In the olden days when students wrote with a pen or pencil on a piece of lined paper… Continue reading Margin Planning – a writing tip!
Thank you for the feedback from the Integers resource I posted a few weeks ago - they are taking some time to produce, but are definitely more manageable than my question database. These resources will eventually be available as an entire study pack for students or teachers available for sale through this website and TeachersPayTeachers. While in… Continue reading Perimeter, Area, Volume & Surface Area Resource – try it now!
Thank you for your comments about the maths posts of late. I received quite a few emails from readers wanting to know a little more about how I am assessing maths in the beginning. So, I thought I would share this short screening checklist with you. I don't like to give students a big written… Continue reading Initial Numeracy Screening
I am presenting a practical hands-on session at a convention in a few weeks about maths strategies (www.learningdifferenceconvention.com) and have a restricted time limit (one hour) – how on earth will I condense this topic? Well, I begin by not condensing anything – my first draft of anything is always incredibly long, but the initial… Continue reading Why Is Maths So Hard?