Listening: The neglected literacy
We all hope our students are paying attention in class, but have they actually been taught to listen effectively? Whereas it is widely accepted that reading, writing and speaking need to be taught directly and thoroughly, listening is often an assumed and therefore neglected skill. In this blog post, Pat Hipwell shares some tips for teaching your students to listen effectively.
Establishing a clear reason for reading
Students, particularly high school students, usually need a valid reason for doing something. The more authentic the reason, the more likely students are to do as we ask. In this blog post, logonliteracy's Pat Hipwell looks at how you can help students understand why they need to read a piece of text.
Strategies for teachers to beat procrastination
You have a stack of assignments to mark and several lessons to plan. But instead of ticking things off your to-do list, you spend hours watching videos and endlessly scrolling through social media. It might not be easy, it is certainly possible to beat procrastination.
How to squeeze in more reading and writing practice
We all know that reading is an essential skill that our students should practice regularly. But so many teachers tell me that they struggle with fitting it in with all the competing demands on their time. I wrote about how you can squeeze more reading and writing practice into your lessons on the logonliteracy blog.
Tips to make next term better
If you get to the end of each term and wonder where the previous 10 weeks went, you're not the only one! If you keep finding yourself making the resolution to be more organised next term, there are some areas you can focus on to help your students and make your life easier. ⏰. Plan for students to begin learning from the opening minutes of the lesson 🏗. Introduce a structure for explicitly teaching writing skills 📊 Use graphic organisers!
Using video clips effectively in the classroom
The teacher wheeling in a TV and DVD player (or perhaps a VCR) used to be quite novel and exciting for students. For today’s teens, who carry devices that can film, edit and view countless videos in their pockets, I suspect this is no longer the case. If you haven't planned and advised students there will be a post-viewing activity, chances are your students will not see the video as important and will tune out.
A sweet trick for teaching cognitive verbs
Hands up if you have ever said, "you haven't answered the question" to a student? 🙋 When you drill down and look at why this happens, it's usually related to a student using the wrong cognitive verb. In this post, I look at a simple activity to help your students understand and apply different keywords to answer different questions. Read it here:
Using video clips effectively in the classroom
When I first started teaching, we had videos that were lengthy and much of what students watched wasn’t exactly what we wanted. It was difficult to use them effectively. Now we can click on YouTube or ClickView and select from many short clips that are just what we want. However, there are still tricks to making sure you are using videos effectively in the classroom.
Little words in big words
Today Pat looks at a quick exercise from "Hooking Students Into Learning... in all curriculum areas" that will help your students become better spellers. You can save 20% on Hooking Students Into Learning and other logonliteracy products if you buy before the end of May 2020.
Spelling and cloze exercises
I often get asked, ‘So if you’re not a fan of cloze exercises, what else do you suggest?’ I don't hate cloze exercises but they should be used properly. You can find one example of a good cloze exercise in this blog post and more in "Hooking Students Into Learning... in all curriculum areas".
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