Reading

These past couple weeks at Teacher have been jam-packed. We welcomed a number of guests – from the eSafety commissioner to the ARIA Music Teacher of the Year – and we also featured a lot of content on the topic of literacy. Catch up on anything you might’ve missed in today’s podcast.

How do schools go about building a supportive reading culture? To answer this question, Dr Margaret Merga went straight to the source – teacher librarians – to gain their valuable insights into the factors that enable and constrain the development of a whole school reading culture. Here, we explore her findings.

In this extract from her new book, award-winning Teacher Librarian Megan Daley shares her tips for designing and stocking a dedicated recreational reading area in your classroom, and how to create inviting library spaces for your school.

Determined to lift the literacy and numeracy results of students at her school, special education teacher Jessica Colleu Terradas and her colleagues developed an intensive, individual instruction program for lower performing students.

Why do some children learn to read without explicit teaching? Dr Jennifer Buckingham and Professor Anne Castles explore in today’s reader submission.

Each year, a list of the top 10 most borrowed picture books in Australia is released by the Civica Libraries Index. See which picture books made the list for 2018 in today’s infographic.

In his latest Teacher video, Greg Whitby speaks to Dale Yearsley about his approach to Year 2 Literacy at St Margaret Mary’s Primary in Merrylands. Yearsley and colleagues aim to extend students’ learning by using picture books that help them to apply their literacy skills across all key learning areas.

Dr Lyn Sharratt explores three practical learning, teaching and leading approaches – writing to improve critical literacy skills, bump-it-up walls, and collaborative assessment of student work – that each support teachers’ focus on creating critically literate graduates.

As an educator, how do you encourage your students to discover new books they’ll not only enjoy, but that will also expand their interests? Today’s article looks at the texts that made the 2018 Civica Libraries Index of most borrowed books.

In today’s Q&A, we hear from Gunda Tire, the National Project Manager for PISA in Estonia, who shares more about the features of the Estonian school system, and what teachers have been doing to support students to reach their educational potential.