Teaching students about text types won’t – on its own – make them good writers
For a long time, in Australia and elsewhere, the writing curriculum has been shaped by the ideas of linguist Michael Halliday, who developed “systemic functional…
Writing assessments: 10 evidence-informed practices to do a good job for your students (with resource links and practical suggestions)
How do we judge whether a student is a “good writer” for their age and years at school? How can we describe a particular piece…
To help teenagers with language challenges, we need to go beyond words and sentences
Many norm-referenced, standardised language tests for teens focus on word- and sentence-level tasks. But, for social and academic success, teenagers need to communicate with family members,…
Stories help students to understand and remember new information. Here’s why.
When I think about gravity, the first thing that pops into my head is an image of an apple falling off the tree and onto…
Speech pathology homework doesn’t have to be boring
Atop a foothill of Mt Warrenheip, a mere 8km from my childhood home in Ballarat, sits Kryal Castle. Behold its magnificence! Built in the 1970s by…