One Bite Learning

04/04/2022

And following on from the last post - another question I find hard to answer is whether a diagnosis is worth pursuing. Every child and every situation is different - but this flowchart would definitely be a great place to start!

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04/04/2022

I'm sometimes asked for my opinion as to whether a student is dyslexic - and it is a very fair question to ask of someone who has experience with dyslexic students! But I'm hesitant to give a very firm opinion when I'm not qualified to diagnose students. I normally identify myself as someone who just knows the signs - and then I talk about the signs.
And now with this super-duper handy sheet you can know the signs too ;-)

31/03/2022

An interesting graphic - with some American statistics -but the general point of the post could also apply to Australia.
(It's a little difficult to give directly equivalent Australian numbers, but some that might help would be:
1. Naplan data, which says that around 40% of students are below 'proficient' readers.
2. Recent research into adult literacy found only around 54% of adults had literacy skills at an 'adequate' level (with little variance between age groups).

24/03/2022

And the same for reading and writing!

So true 🙌

17/03/2022

I must confess, this one made me cry a little. Had to share ;-)

08/09/2020

So....yesterday I started the office pack-down…🥺😳😱🤭😬😆😁🤪
It is a bittersweet feeling to say goodbye to this place – it’s certainly been an eventful, colourful few years running a tutoring office – full of eventful, colourful students! (not to mention eventful, colourful tutors…😉) elephants, unicorns, off-key singing, disturbing dance moves, and even the occasional office fire.
Oh yeah – and we also managed to fit some pretty mega learning into all that 😉
But – this is not the end! In fact – this is a very exciting shift. Up until this point we have been ‘just’ a tutoring office – which has been great! But it has also limited how many students we could reach – and how often we could reach them. As of next term we will all be shifting into offering home-based tutoring – but on top of this, we are also hoping to develop different ways and means for more students to benefit more often and in more ways from what we do.
What exactly will this mean? Well – that’s a whole other exciting kettle of fish that I’m hoping to start sharing as it ‘cooks’ over the coming weeks and months. In the meantime – stay gold! And stay tuned for all our exciting next episodes 😉

23/07/2020

Steve was one of our literacy tutors for some years - but nowadays he’s taken his skills into whole new and exciting areas! I recently got to catch up with him and his family and it was very encouraging to hear what they’re up to. I thought I’d share this for anyone who’s curious about what he’s doing nowadays!

Education services around the world have had to adapt to the pandemic, faced with the challenge of keeping students engaged. While most kids are able to learn even with changes to their studies, many in rural Australia are struggling to feel connected to their learning. One community organisation is...

04/05/2020

Hi all,
I thought I would put this one up as app of the day! It can tell you whether you got your math problem wrong - as well as where you went wrong! I haven't actually tried this myself but have heard lots of good things about it....and thought some of you might appreciate something that will help to check all the math problems that are happening at home right now!

CheckMath supports various topics including basic arithmetic, fractions, equations and many more. Suitable for ages 10 to 16.

28/04/2020

Hi everyone,
I just thought I would share this - Nessy is probably the most highly recommended app for kids with dyslexia. Today and tomorrow they're having a giveaway for some of their apps. I haven't tried these before but from everything I know about Nessy I imagine they would be highly recommendable! If you have some beginner level readers or writers this is definitely worth checking out!

(PS - I just copied all of the info below. The links don't work - you'll just have to look up the name of the app in the app store if you're interested).

Try out a few of our pre-school and primary apps for FREE!
Available: Monday 27th April - Wednesday 29th April
We are setting several of our preschool and primary school apps free today through Wednesday, to get your feedback! Download them for free (you get to keep them forever), and if your child enjoys them, please leave us a review right from the app.

These apps teach LETTER SOUNDS and early sound blending, foundational PHONICS, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs, and teach the 100
Ideas to improve? Email us at [email protected] with your feedback.
The Nessy Hairy apps are designed for pre-school and primary school kids - ages 3-8 years old.
These apps teach LETTER SOUNDS and early sound blending, foundational PHONICS with consonant digraphs and vowel digraphs, and teach the 100 most frequent SIGHT WORDS.

If you like these apps please leave us a review! Reviewing Nessy is easy - you can do it directly from the app!

Hairy Letters
Master the alphabet with the help of the Hairies!
Learn how to write all 26 letters. Learn the letter sounds.
Play games to blend the sounds into 3-letter words!

Apple: Click here

Hairy Phonics 1
After learning the letters, learn how they sometimes work together as consonant digraphs (that's two letters that come together to make one sound).
Master this and other early phonics with the Haries!
Android: Click here
Apple: Click here

Hairy Phonics 2
Vowel digraphs are two letters that come together to make one sound! Master this early phonic skill with the Haries!
Play games to blend phonemes into words.
Android: Click here
Apple: Click here

Hairy Words 1
Sight Words are tricky words that we see a lot but can be hard to read and spell.
Learn the 100 most common sight words with the Hairies.

Apple: Click here
*Unfortunately, due to restrictions on Android, we are only able to offer Hairy Phonics 1 and 2 for free on this platform.

Interested in our other apps?
You can check out what's available here.

Have a great day!

The Nessy Team
[email protected]

23/04/2020

Hey guys,
So - today's basic skill that I thought I could help with was games!
Actually....boring teacher confession.....it was spelling. But spelling is a huuuuggggeee topic that I could go on about forever (and probably will go on about forever over the coming weeks), and in the name of first things being first - I thought I'd better start by sharing some games....cause if you're going to be reading and writing a bunch of word lists you may as well make it fun!
A couple of links to share. The first one is to a page which has a whole bunch of editable gameboards. You can use these to make games out of any spelling list - and they are here: https://www.phonicbooks.co.uk/advice-and-resources/free-teaching-resources/
The second is a link to part of the video series I've made for new tutors starting with us explaining some of the games we play at One Bite. This is just a rough guide to get you thinking about creative ways you can turn any spelling list into a game (also - if you're one of our current students, you'll probably recognise some of these - and your mum and dad might be able to have a go at them at home 😉). If you want to check that out - the link is here: http://onebitelearning.com.au/index.php/general-use-games/
Hope that gets your creative game-creator juices flowing! Don't have too much fun without me!

22/04/2020

Morning all!
So – as online learning gets underway in Queensland, I’ve had and heard lots of conversations about how parents can focus on learning just the necessary skills with their children without students (and parents!) getting overwhelmed and frustrated.
Of course – one of the best things your child can be practicing is reading, so I thought I would link you to a bunch of the best free or cheap decodable readers available at the moment (lots of great “covid sales” on resources right now!).
As a literacy teacher, decodable readers are one of the most powerful tools in my toolkit. Getting into some of these would be a top recommendation for a lot of my students. I’ve cut a video from our training series to give a brief overview of what decodable readers are and how you can use them. Watch this for extra info if you’re keen – or just click through the links for the free resources!

http://onebitelearning.com.au/index.php/systematic-phonetic-readers/