Teachers get new skills
It’s not just the students at Deniliquin’s St Michael’s School who are constantly learning.
Staff were recently treated to high standard professional development that focused on orthographical mapping and the important role it plays in teaching spelling.
Leading the workshop was linguist, speaker, consultant and author Lyn Stone.
Her background includes working with children who struggle with literacy and using interventions to help remedy this.
St Michael’s literacy instructional leader Fiona Waters said Ms Stone has written many research papers, workshops and books around “all things literacy” and is a renowned expert in the field of the science of reading, spelling and writing, both in Australia and overseas.
“Teachers were able to learn so much from a presenter who is a leader in the field”, Mrs Waters said.
“It confirmed that the current teaching that is taking place in the school, based on science and evidence collected over the last 30 years, is the best way to teach literacy and will have a huge affect on students ability to progress
confidently in the area of literacy.
“The school hopes to continue its relationship with Lyn, and we look forward to more professional development into the future.”
In the meantime, Mrs Waters said the school will implement the ‘Spelling for Life’ approach to the teaching of spelling, alongside already proven reading and writing pedagogy backed by science and evidence and implemented through a direct and explicit approach to teaching.