Nathaniel Swain's Blog, page 2

The classroom: A canvas for thought - Not a work of art

Not all primary school teachers think like me. I am very lucky to have fellow teacher friends and colleagues to share some very different perspectives that are out there. Primary teacher and instructional  coach Leah Myers, and one of my talented PhD Students, primary teacher Helen Hughes have both helped me to understand something important. The typical primary school teacher thinks about their classrooms as a work of art. Making rooms ‘pretty’ seems to be a very high priority for many educator...

Your questions answered #1 - Decodables, student goals and secondary

Welcome to the first of many shorter posts where I seek to address questions from you and share potential answers with all readers in the Cognitorium.

For this post we will look at introducing decodable texts at your school, individualised student goals, and instruction informed by the science of learning in the upper years of secondary.

...

Whole class teaching is not one size fits all

Schools can be curious places. We nearly always teach students in fairly large classes. And yet there is often a considerable range of achievement and prior knowledge among our learners. In secondary settings we all know the common phrase that it can be seven years of difference between your highest and lowest achieving students.

How is this workable? ...

What does learning sound like?

When you are next visiting a live classroom, or standing in your own, I want you to take a moment and close your eyes. Take in all the auditory information around you, and note the kinds of sounds in the space.

Can you hear the discussion of students? Can you clearly hear the teacher from any of the students’ places at desks or on the mat? When one person is speaking, is it otherwise silent, or is there a hum of other voices? What other background noises are present? Are students loudly taking o...

Teaching technique: Awkward to artful

Tweet from Dr Zach Groshell

I saved a tweet last year from my colleague and contributor to Harnessing the Science of Learning, Dr Zach Groshell. It hits at the challenge of getting technical in teaching. There are a growing number of resources for teachers to offer practical and detailed support for the techniques that can comprise great teaching. Check out the following to see but a sample:

Teach Like A Champion

WalkThrus

Great Teaching Toolkit

StepLab

Explicit Direct Instruction; and

New practice gu...

Inquiry learning - Not whether, but when

Often in social media and staff room debates about teaching, it feels like we are talking around in circles. 

It’s not all about explicit teaching!

You can’t teach it all...

Ask me a question!

I receive dozens of emails a month from educators around the world. To help me keep up and respond prompting, use this space!

💬 You can ask me any question you have about teaching, literacy, learning, language or schools.

You can post anonymously or with your details included.

Reading comprehension but not as you know it: Diving into knowledge-rich curricula

Sharing Best Practice GEELONG 2023

It was a pleasure to present this talk in March 2023.

Abstract 

Many schools are starting to incorporate the five major elements of reading in their literacy approach. The foundations of Science of Reading are increasingly reflected in classrooms. However, the work of embedding the effective teaching of reading and writing across the learning areas is a much bigger task. The potential of reading instruction as a pathway to the powerful knowledge that exists in ot...

Inverting the Legacies of Balanced Literacy: Teaching reading and writing the right way up

Sharing Best Practice Ballarat 2022

It was a pleasure to present this talk in October 2022.

Abstract 

How best can teachers and school leaders ensure all the components of reading and writing are taught coherently and effectively, with a proper emphasis on what should be explicit and what can be more embedded? 

In this talk, Dr Swain will explore some of the Whole Language hangovers, including the sense that everything with teaching literacy has been upside down. Under Balanced Literacy, certain as...

Don’t reinvent the wheel! Write2Learn resources

In this week’s post you’ll find resources for:

Run-onsV-ing and V-ed clauses (You’ll love them!)Story grammar for teaching narrative ...