Handwriting – Why Bother with Cursive?
Anna Gillingham (the ‘G’ in ‘OG’) advocated teaching cursive from the beginning and many specialist schools for students with Dyslexia do the same. In many European countries, cursive is taught from the beginning of schooling. In Australia, just mentioning cursive to a room of teachers will draw out all sorts of strong opinions and sometimes heated debate. Regardless of a school’s position on the teaching of cursive, we advocate for a school-wide approach to teaching handwriting.
Consistency is the greatest gift schools can give students when it comes to handwriting.
Playberry Laser Teacher Tips
There’s a lot to for teachers to habituate when learning to run effective structured literacy lessons. At Playberry Laser T1-2 we’re constantly thinking about the small, easily missed pieces of practice that make huge differences to teacher effectiveness. We’re creating a growing collection of teacher tip slides to help make explicit what great teachers do implicitly.
Lifting the Bar on Behaviour in Structured Literacy – A video on establishing routines for Phase One Teachers
The Science of Learning has placed some inescapable truths in front of us all about the costs of inattention and disruption to student outcomes. We have to pay attention, otherwise the costs of not doing so will continue to be paid by our students. It’s time we talk about the elephant in the room – student behaviour and how we should be managing it.
Rosenshine’s Principle 10 : Engage students in weekly and monthly review: Students need to be involved in extensive practice in order to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Australian Curriculum v9.0 and Playberry Laser T1-2 Literacy Program
The following document illustrates the correlations between the Playberry Laser Literacy Program and the Australian National Curriculum v9.0 for English (ACARA, 2022). It includes a discussion of the English curriculum’s strands and a list of the individual F–6 content descriptions most directly linked to the program.
Playberry Laser T1-2 Parent Information
Structured literacy teaching looks different to how students were previously taught to read and spell. A compelling body of research from across many scientific disciplines of has shown us that there is one way to teach children to read and spell that gets better results than the others, and finally, these methods are taking root in schools. This body of research is sometimes referred to as The Science of Reading. However; it is important to understand that this doesn’t refer to any one particular program, it is a methodology that many high-quality literacy programs use.
Rosenshine’s Principle 9: Require and monitor independent practice: Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 8: Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks: The teacher provides students with temporary supports and scaffolds to assist them when they learn difficult tasks.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 6: Check for student understanding: Checking for student understanding at each point can help students learn the material with fewer errors.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 7: Obtain a high success rate: It is important for students to achieve a high success rate during classroom instruction.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Updated 2024 Teacher Manual
This is the blog post form of the Teacher Manual. This is also available in the Teacher Reference section.
Rosenshine’s Principle 5: Guide student practice: Successful teachers spend more time guiding students’ practice of new material.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 4: Provide models: Providing students with models and worked examples can help them learn to solve problems faster.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 3: Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students: Questions help students practice new information and connect new material to their prior learning.
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 2: Present new material using small steps
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
Rosenshine’s Principle 1: Daily Review
Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction are at the heart of how we teach in Playberry Laser. These principles have gained momentum, prompting us all to consider whether our teaching is compatible with human cognitive architecture. In this blog series I will unpack each of Rosenshine’s ten principles.
How to use Morphology Catch Up Lessons
Some classes won’t have been taught the morphology previous to their point in the Playberry-Laser scope and sequence. We have developed morphology catch-up lessons to get them up to speed.
Paired Fluency Reading Routine
Fluency pairs are highly effective when done well and monitored closely.
