THE LOREM IPSUMS
J UMLAYY 2 20 01 16 5
SPRING 2016
16’s Literacy News & Views
Aiming to Enhance Learning
Literacy
“Words empower us. They enable us to define reality, or
create it. In retelling our experiences or listening to others, in
writing experience down or reading others’ words, we
enlarge our lives, cross frontiers of knowledge. Dancing With
the Pen – The Learner as a Writer, (1996, p. 9)
It is now twenty years on and these beliefs and principles still
ring true. We have been very lucky this year with literacy PD
and familiarization. Last term we held the cluster Literacy
Expo in the Vardon School Hall. This event was well
supported and proved to be a successful experience. This term
Dr Alison Davis came to Hamilton to run a writing
workshop for Cluster 16. We gained a lot of knowledge about
writing as a thinking process and learnt some cool teaching
strategies. In addition Lynn Pascoe ran an oral language
course for us which was interesting and relevant.
Walt Disney Quote
In 1948 Walt Disney wrote an
essay titled “What Mickey
Means to Me”. Below is an
excerpt from it:
“Mickey Mouse popped out of
my mind onto a drawing pad
20 years ago on a train ride
from Manhattan to Hollywood
at a time when business
fortunes of my brother and
myself were at lowest ebb and
disaster seemed right around
the corner.”
Save the Date!
“In RTLB Cluster 16 we aim to enhance learning by providing greater
opportunities for analysing, applying and sharing best practise in teaching
Lynn
E-asTTle
LiteracyPascoe
and accelerating student learning
progress. RTLB Cluster 16
intends to be more efficient and effective in facilitating the use of assessment
data,
and
teachingThis
strategies
inform teaching
and
full daytoworkshop
for Cluster
Lynn teacher
Pascoe observations
will be holding
the
next steps in learning for individuals and groups, especially those students at
16 is a follow-up to last year’s
second workshop for our cluster.
risk of not meeting learning standards or requiring differentiated teaching.”
introduction to the revised eThis
workshop
will
focus
on
oral
RTLB Cluster 16 Literacy Focus
asTTle writing tool. If you did not
language, reading & writing.
attend last year you are still
welcome to attend this year.
Time & Venue T.B.A.
20 September 2016
10 November 2016
Time: T.B.A.
Venue: M.O.E. Te Ihi Room
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THE LOREM IPSUMS
J U L Y
2 0 1 6
SPRING 2016
Why English is So Hard
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
WELCOME TO
THE LITERACY EXPO…
Welcome to the Literacy Expo of Cluster 16,
We’ve been working hard behind the scenes.
I’d like to say thank you to the crew:
Louise, Sonia, Kāren, Denise, Margaret, Gayle and
Sue.
Delve into your bag and you will see,
Things to help with literacy.
Take your time to look around,
Check out the resources that abound.
RTLBs have great literacy knowledge,
That we first acquired when we were at college.
When working with kids we have a lot on our plate,
But it’s part of our challenge to keep up to date.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Anonymous
Right here you will find the resources you need,
In order to help struggling readers succeed.
There are tools to determine their comprehension,
And books and games, to cement word retention.
The resources for oral language, spelling and
phonics,
Could shed some light on why kids are laconic.
See what you can find in the different sections,
Talk to your neighbour to build intervention
connections.
Writing is arguably the most difficult task,
“Why should I bother?”, a lot of kids ask.
It’s a complicated business getting words onto
paper,
You’ll find resources here to help with that caper.
Thank you Rubina, Myra, Ginny, Rhondda, Pam, and
Paul,
For getting behind this one and all.
Thank you RTLBs for coming today,
Let’s get this expo under way.
Too many words I have spoken…
I declare this expo open!
By Janet Stowell
2
J U L Y
2 0 1 6
Expo-nential
The Literacy Expo was held in the Vardon School Hall on 4 th May this year.
The purpose of the expo was for Cluster 16 RTLB to share literacy resources
from their offices and/or personal collections. The idea was to share
resources that RTLB have found useful and/or interesting and would
recommend to others.
RTLB work across a range of year levels form New Entrants to Year 10.
Because this is such a wide range there are obviously going to be some
resources that individuals are not familiar with, or that they have in their
office but have not actually used. The expo was an effective familiarisation
exercise.
Thank you Louise, Sonia G, Karen, Denise W, Gayle, Sue and Margaret.
Thank you also to all those RTLB who brought along resources for the benefit
of others. Thank you Myra Paton, principal of Vardon School, for allowing us
to use your hall for the day, we all appreciated it. We were lucky enough to
have three visitors to the expo who brought fantastic resources to share with
us, thank you Ginny, Pam and Rhondda.
Useful Literacy Links:
http://www.guysread.com/
http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/Teacherneeds/Sounds-and-words/Glossary
http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/Teacherneeds/Sounds-and-words/Vocabulary
http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/SecondaryLiteracy/Teacher-needs/Literacy-in-the-learning-areas/Annotatedstudent-exemplars/Secondary-literacy-exemplars-teaching-andlearning-responses
http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Learning-about-mystudents-needs/Knowledge-of-English
http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Planning-for-mystudents-needs/Resources-research-and-professionalsupport/Features-of-text-forms/Descriptions
http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Planning-for-mystudents-needs/Resources-research-and-professionalsupport/Features-of-text-forms
http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Learning-about-mystudents-needs/Knowledge-of-the-learner/Learners-with-specialeducation-needs
Collaboration
If you would like to share any website links,
descriptions of apps, resources or articles via
the newsletter please email me:
[email protected]
RTLB Cluster 16 Newsletter – 16’s Literacy News & Views #2
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