Amy Hinge

Week 7 prompt: My placement this year was the first one in the upper levels of primary school. (Year 5 and 6) When it came to taking the Enligh lessons i soon realised that i needed to deepen my knowledge on the skills i was teaching as i had only taught the basics to the lower levels. When researching, i came across this teaching toolkit (In the picture above). It’s called the Guide to Literacy Teaching Toolkit: Foundation to level 6, and it’s a resource from The Education State. It has great sections on Phonics, Word Morphology, Comprehension, and much more! This was a great resource to expand my knowledge on these areas and i highly encourage the use of it to all teachers and pre-service teachers! The second resource i would love to talk about is the Teach This website. (https://www.teachthis.com.au) This is also a great resource that i have used quite a lot. The picture above is an example of what comes up when i clicked, English, Year 3, & Classroom displays. This resource also has another option which is called ‘unit plans’ which i thought was fantastic. It allows teachers and pre-service teachers to get a gauge on what needs to be taught and strategies on how to do so. This is very beneficial for us as educators as it can reassure us that we are teaching the right materials. The unit plans area is also great at expanding our knowledge on the materials we need to teach.

I was introduced to EPIC books on my last placement and found it very useful! EPIC was an app on the student's Ipads so they could use it themselves as well. The way I used it was by getting it up on the whiteboard and reading it to the students with the visuals very clear for them. If students were to use it themselves, they have the option for using headphones and getting the story read to them! Which made it very easy to differentiate my lessons as the EAL students could have the story read to them. We were learning about persuasive texts, and you (as the teacher) can choose the books for the students to read and create different folders so that they are always on task! E.g. We had a persuasive texts folder and you could have different ones based on what you are learning. It’s very easy to use and very direct! You can find certain children's literature you're looking for very quickly. 

This is an anchor chart that my students and I made on my last placement. Throughout taking the writing lessons I noticed that my year 4 students were lacking the basic skill of including the senses in their writing. We created this poster together and kept it on the board while they added some senses to their persuasive pieces. This poster was very important and will be important in my future practices as it is easy to forget to add these little details when you are writing. As the poster states, using the senses engage the reader, and can help the reader visualise what they are reading. These advantages of using the senses in your writing are very important!

The rainbow fish is the first book that comes to my mind when I think about reading in my childhood. I was obsessed! I even had all the board games that related to the book as well. I loved the storyline, the images, pretty much everything about the book. It made me feel calm and happy. The main reason I loved the book was because of the happy ending when the fish finally felt happy. When reading it now, the book has multiple hidden messages. For student’s reading it, it can allow for them to realise that sharing is a kind gesture. It can also highlight how happiness can be found with positive relationships with others. This book has impacted my future teaching as I will sometimes choose books to read to my class that can have hidden messages in them. This will allow my students to get a deeper understanding of the world and how to act/participate in it, in a respectful way.