Ice-Cream and Ideas 2019

Puppets
Juniors - Sock and hand puppets
Making puppets based on stories, from paper
Telling stories, e.g. the princess and the frog, with puppets as a basis for writing.
Wellbeing - encouraging, calming, “freeing thoughts”
Oral language - children telling/making up their own stories with the puppets, using expression in their
voice, communicate well with puppets as it’s not a real person so they don’t feel fear talking to it.
“You have to know your puppet” - it needs its own personality.

Highlights from Literacy Conference in 2018

Bring the fun back into teaching - teachable moments.
ESOL children can be given opportunities to write in their mother tongue - gives them a chance to feel a
sense of success. The English will come!

Struggling writers:
1. They tell you their sentence several times.
2. They tell it again, you count the number of words together.
3. Put lines down on the page for the number of words.
4. Can even put down the starting sound for writers who really struggle!
5. Chln write their sentence.
This way, they know how many words they have to write - an achievable goal!

Non-stop writing
Ss write any words that come into their heads without stopping. Start with 30 seconds, increase time as
necessary. Lets Ss know they do have all of these words/ideas in their heads, they just need to practise
getting them to make sense.
Words on plastic display that can sit on the table, much easier for
struggling writers to look at than something on the board. Write
on it with a whiteboard marker.

Word Tennis
Use the sound of the week, e.g. “st”, in pairs they come up with
as many words using that sounds as possible back and forth.

Create an environment where children have a choice to read -

you can’t force them.
Reading aloud makes all the difference - show children the
enjoyment you get from it. That you love reading.
“What am I reading:” on your whiteboard.
Milo and marshmallow night on camps, where you just read!
NZ Electronic Poetry Centre​:
● Use as a resource for looking
● Use poems and mimic the style of the poets in your own
poem
● Links on this could also be great for links that can be used
for independent activities
Reading Recovery strategies that you can use in the
classroom
Structure of the lessons:
1. Roaming around the known - working around what they know, establishing their strengths and
weaknesses. This is for the first couple of weeks of RR.
2. Familiar reading with a known text
3. Letter and sound knowledge - sorting magnetic letters
4. Writing
5. New book

Writing
Writing progression is from ideas in the head, to spoken words, to a written message.
Children need to learn to be storytellers.
HIghlighted thick line: short letters stay within the highlighted section, tall letters go above the line, letters
with a tail go below it:

Blob of blue tack to get the correct spacing between the words
Breaking existing neural pathways and creating new ones - takes time!
Expectations: “That’s a fast neat word that you know how to write.” so that children don’t take too long.

Teach confusing letters/sounds/words in isolation. E.g. don’t teach the b and the d together if there is
confusion, teach them in isolation.