Albury-Wodonga Tutoring

28/09/2021

Jolly Phonics: I can’t rave enough about this program. If your junior school child is struggling with reading, especially over the past 18 months during on and off again learning, give this a go. For Foundation (Prep or Kindergarten) you could start with the beginning sounds of the alphabet, but I’ve found most of my class are well and truly ready for digraphs and trigraphs as they prepare for Year 1. A digraph is two letters that make a special sound. So, if your child is stilling sounding “p” “h” for “ph” and not “f” then you know you need to give this a go.

24/07/2017

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/

Wow, an amazing story of family, and having the courage to break the rules. Get ready to tune in at 8pm.

Rather than keeping him to routines and “wrapping him in cotton wool”, he wanted to expose the 14-year-old to uncertainty and unpredictability.

28/02/2017

Loving this new series; I highly recommend it for parents, even if your kids aren't there yet. Compelling family viewing!

Meet 14 Australian students as they self-document their final year of high school through daily video diaries. The stresses of this launch-pad year start on day one as they delve into the pressures of the ATAR.

20/02/2017

In 1955 Dick Bruna created a small rabbit as a drawing to entertain his young son. This small rabbit became one of the most famous rabbits of all time. He called her Nijntje, a shortening of the diminutive konijntje, ‘little rabbit’. Books featuring this character, who became Miffy in English, have been translated into more than fifty languages and are part of the memory of three generations. What a legacy. RIP

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/17/dick-bruna-obituary

Creator of Miffy, the little rabbit who became a star of children’s literature

13/02/2017

We all know giving and receiving effective feedback can change the way we work and feel. Giving feedback to students is the same but different, and of course dependent on the age group and individual learning needs. But in general, these strategies work for me, at school and at home. The table attached is also a good go-to.

• Give feedback that is timely, specific and with constant acknowledgement.
• Modelling, because actions speak louder than words. This works just as well for behaviour management as assessment feedback.
• Asking these four questions: What can the student do? What can’t the student do? How does the student’s work compare with that of others? How can the student do better? This helped differentiate learning for all individuals.
• Peer feedback is valuable at all ages, but particularly with adolescences who give and take criticism more freely from each other, so get their opinions.
• Have high expectations that are explicit and reinforced regularly.

09/02/2017

Looking for some info about my skills, beliefs and strategies as a teacher, and some photos of the fun I've had volunteering, have a look at my e-portfolio http://taniapanozzoworral.wixsite.com/mysite

08/02/2017

Pre-literacy skills, such as knowing the alphabet, recognising letters and numbers, understanding each letter has a sound and that combinations of letters have different sounds that make up words, and then coming to realise print has meaning, are not acquired automatically, they have to be taught.

IT is said that play is the work of young children. Play helps satisfy natural curiosity, encourages exploration and stimulates their imagination. And all the time they are learning about their world, about social relationships, about limits and self regulation.

02/02/2017

There's no doubt an important relationship between literacy levels and life outcomes. We know that literacy competence impacts school success, quality of life, employment and financial security, personal autonomy and self-esteem.
But the components of successful literacy are many and varied. Here are a few that work for me:

• An integrated approach to teaching reading that supports oral language, vocabulary, grammar, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension and multiliteracies

• Direct systematic instruction in the skills required for effective reading: this might include a structured, sequential program involving synthetic phonics for some children

• Synthetic phonics (UK) or blended phonics (US), also known as inductive phonics, is a method of teaching reading which first teaches the letter sounds and then builds up to blending these sounds together to achieve full pronunciation of whole words

• Ongoing assessment to identify those at risk, in light of their individual strengths and their needs

• Collaboration between home and school

• And most of all. teachers who have a repertoire of skills in their toolkit enabling them to individualise and differentiate instruction