GEM LITERACY

📣 REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW OPEN! Due to the high interest across Aotearoa this will now be a 3 DAY ONLINE WORKSHOP!

GEM Literacy is excited to bring you the powerful and highly practical 3-day ONLINE workshop: *Releasing Writers: Getting to Know ThinkSRSD — designed especially for Year 2–8 teachers across Aotearoa.

Year 2-8 teachers will:
✨ Build their knowledge of the reading-writing connection including whole class oral reading fluency practices.
✨ Learn and use DIBELS ORF to measure and track fluency and comprehension.
✨ Know how to teach your learners to write with self-regulation and evidence-based practices underpinned by the Science of Writing.
✨ Intergrate and embed writing instruction across the new NZ curriculum by reading and writing to learn.

📅 Workshop Dates (3 powerful days across the year):
📌 Term 2 – Friday 5 June
📌 Term 3 – Friday 31 July
📌 Term 4 – Friday 23 October

✔️ All 3 workshop days
✔️ A copy of the *Releasing Writers* manual
✔️ Practical tools you can use *immediately*
💰 **$695 + GST**
🔗 https://gemliteracy.co.nz/?mec-events=releasing-writers-getting-to-know-thinksrsd

This isn’t sit-and-listen PLD — it’s **hands-on, practical, and designed for real classrooms**. You’ll leave inspired, confident, and ready to make a real difference for your learners.

🌟GEM Literacy is proud to be an endorsed Releasing Writers ThinkSRSD provider for New Zealand 🌟

📣 COMING SOON! 3 Day Workshop: Releasing Writers - Getting to Know ThinkSRSD - REGISTRATIONS OPEN ON MONDAY!

GEM Literacy is excited to bring you the powerful and highly practical 3-day workshop: *Releasing Writers: Getting to Know ThinkSRSD — designed especially for Year 0–8 teachers across Aotearoa.

Year 1-8 teachers will:

✨ Build their knowledge of the reading-writing connection including whole class oral reading fluency practices.
✨ Learn and use DIBELS ORF to measure and track fluency and comprehension.
✨ Know how to teach your learners to write with self-regulation and evidence-based practices underpinned by the Science of Writing.
✨ Intergrate and embed writing instruction across the new NZ curriculum by reading and writing to learn.

📅 Workshop Dates (3 powerful days across the year):

📌 Term 2 – Friday 5 June
📌 Term 3 – Friday 31 July
📌 Term 4 – Friday 23 October

🕘 **9:00am – 3:00pm**
📍 **Bruce Pullman Park, Takanini (South Auckland)**

💡 What’s included:

✔️ All 3 workshop days
✔️ A copy of *Releasing Writers*
✔️ Morning tea + light lunch
✔️ Practical tools you can use *immediately*

💰 **$995 + GST**

This isn’t sit-and-listen PLD — it’s **hands-on, practical, and designed for real classrooms**. You’ll leave inspired, confident, and ready to make a real difference for your learners.

🌟GEM Literacy is proud to be an endorsed Releasing Writers ThinkSRSD provider for New Zealand 🌟

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School are soaring with the Science of Writing through Releasing Writers (formally ThinkSRSD)! 🚀

After our whole school TOD launch in January, I am truly blown away by how well the teachers and learners have been diving deep into learning by using POWeR and TIDE-L 🐙 🌊

But, what else did I see?

Learners who:

✔️ Were hooked in by watching high-interest videos that sparked curiosity, activated prior knowledge and allowed deep questioning 🪝
✔️Built further knowledge and vocabulary through whole class echo and choral reading 🗣️
✔️ Wrote a pre-assessment to establish a baseline, strengthen learner meta cognition and to inform explicit teaching
✔️ Summarised by writing a clear and concise gist sentence to capture the main idea - strengthening both comprehension and sentence level writing
✔️ Moved on to O and W to organise and write using TIDE-L ✍️

Although we are very much at the beginning of our PLD journey, this is what happens when explicit teaching, a clear and concise tool kit and high expectations come together. Incredible mahi all round! 🌟

What a busy few weeks it has been! 💫

🌟Koru School
🌟 Papakura Central School
🌟Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School
🌟 Leabank School
🌟 Hill Park School
🌟 Rowandale School
🌟 Roscommon School

Launching ThinkSRSD at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School! 🚀✍️ 🧠

The professional learning conversations were rich, the questions thoughtful and the enthusiasm for explicit, evidence-informed writing instruction was clear.

But, why is writing so important?

✔️ Writing is expected across all curriculum areas
✔️ Writing is important because it benefits reading, and vice versa
✔️ Writing supports reading comprehension especially when children read and write to learn
✔️ Writing about reading prompts learners to reflect on what they have learnt by connecting and sorting ideas (knowledge builds knowledge)
✔️ Writing often facilitates moving new learning into long term memory 💡

A huge thank you to this amazing staff for the curiosity and commitment to improving outcomes for all learners!

✨ Welcome to 2026! ✨
I hope you all enjoyed a restful break and some very well-deserved R&R.

This year, I’m excited to be launching Releasing Writers: ThinkSRSD across a number of schools in South Auckland 📚✍️ Today’s journey kicked off at Koru School, where we began unpacking ThinkSRSD pedagogy and the power of explicit teaching to support reading, writing, learning and thinking across Year 1-8.

What I love that it is not just a writing approach — it’s a framework that supports how students learn and think across the curriculum!

👉 Have you explored ThinkSRSD in your classroom or school? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

🌟MOE Structured Literacy Funded PLD Cohort 7 for Years 1-8 opens next Monday 13 October ⭐️

This PLD will run from Term 1 - Term 3 2026.

OPTION 1
Attend our highly engaging and informative workshops with follow-up in-school coaching and mentoring sessions.

OPTION 2
Are you looking for more personalised PLD to suit the needs and journey of your school? Then GEM Literacy can tailor this PLD to meet the needs of your kura! 🏫

Please email [email protected] to find out more and to register your interest.

Today was my first day back at Paparimu School for Term 4! 🌟

Year 1-4 began their VERY first ThinkSRSD POWeR cycle by focusing on the amazing octopus through: 🐙

* P1 - Pre-read for the Gist using choral and echo reading 📖
* P2 - Pull apart the prompt 🤔
* P3 - Pick ideas 💡

What a joy to hear students using vocabulary such as detach, mimic and camouflage!

Year 5-8 have already been on their ThinkSRSD journey a little while so we focused on refining how we organise our ideas, knowledge and vocabulary through “jot talk” on our TIDE+L planner ✍️

It really was such a treat to work with such passionate teachers and students!

🌟MOE Structured Literacy Funded PLD Cohort 7 for Years 1-8!🌟

I'm pleased to announce that I am now taking expressions of interest from SOUTH AUCKLAND schools for COHORT 7! MOE applications will open on Monday 13 October (Week 2 of Term 4) with PLD running from Term 1 - Term 3 2026.

OPTION 1
Attend our highly engaging and informative 3-day workshops with follow-up coaching and mentoring sessions.

OPTION 2
Are you looking for more personalised PLD to suit the needs and journey of your school? Then GEM Literacy can come to you! 🥳

Please email [email protected] to find out more and to register your interest.

**SOUTH AUCKLAND SCHOOLS**

In 2026, I am excited to be launching SAIL (South Auckland Initiative for Literacy) - Navigating Knowledge and Learning Pathways.

This initiative hopes to bring together teachers and leaders from South Auckland schools who are passionate about literacy and raising achievement by reading and writing to learn. The aim of this project is to work collaboratively to develop and create a range of cross-curricular knowledge and literature rich units of work from Year 1-8 which align with the Science of Learning and a Structured Literacy approach.

Please fill in the Google form if you wish to find out more and would like to be part of this learning journey.

I will be in touch as soon as I have collected responses and gauged interest.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxflqVyF5HWLKBBZW8jzniGccghszSU7JJLvygysOz-mqQow/viewform?usp=header

Thank you and have a great rest of your term.
Gemma

Last week I had the pleasure of spending the week in Melbourne visiting three high performing schools with Ravi Naidoo (Principal) and Carol Elson (Deputy Principal) of Robertson Road School.

Templestowe Heights Primary School, Brandon Park Primary School and Bentleigh West Primary School really treated us to a series of amazing lessons which were underpinned by high expectations for behaviour, engagement and instruction. Wow-wee! We were truly blown away! 🤩

I can’t wait to also share what I have learnt with my GEM LITERACY schools in South Auckland.