Name of Course/Programme/Seminar:
Boys in Literacy PD
Provider/Presenter:
Marshall Diggs
If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?
- Teach and develop Reading Strategies which invite boys to create, compete and imagine
- Teach boys these 4 strategies: Making Inferences, Making Connections, Decoding, Summarising
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Boys will read material that interests them and captivates their attention
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Boys shouldn’t be sitting for longer than their age and 10 minutes
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You can have control OR you can have growth, but you can’t have both
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Your greatest contribution at school is not what you can teach - it’s WHO YOU TEACH
How has this professional development challenged my thinking?
- This PD was a reminder about the importance of knowing my learners.
- Use to my advantage the positive relationship I have with my boys as the stepping stone of really making a difference with their learning in literacy
- It hasn't changed my thinking - it's reaffirmed my thinking - particularly around the strategies I should be teaching in Reading. From the Sheena Cameron PD, earlier in the year, I had identified similar strategies as the NEED in my classroom. Today's PD confirmed I'm on the right track.
- Reminder that boys think, learn and work differently to the girls
- Move away from the traditional 'Writing genre teaching' and empower boys through engaging tasks that involve boys to write about facts, competition, humour, survival, conflict, adversity etc
- Inspire boys to WRITE through learning experiences - i.e the flying teabag experiment (Concrete Prompts for an Abstract Task)
What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?
- Some aspects of my literacy programme - include more warm-up games such as word association, Buddy A & Buddy B, Walk & Talk, Tap & Read
- Use videos to prompt writing
- Word Banks are effective when wanting students to remember key vocabulary (I had started this after the Sheena Cameron PD)
- Subtle Praise
- Boys shouldn't be sitting longer than their age + 10 minutes - so encourage them to walk about the class and elbow shake others or play the finger/palm game as little brain breakers
- Boys in Literacy PD 2020