12 May 2016

10 actions of LTR teachers

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

An LTR teacher …

believes in the enormous capacity of the students to think and learn
knows the required curriculum content and the sequential steps for successful learning of the content
knows the concepts behind the content and teaches explicitly, sequentially, step by step
models all concepts in context – oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, grammar, punctuation, reading and writing
provides interesting, varied and cyclical activities (constantly revisits what is already known and builds on to that understanding) to enable students to practise often and master the concepts in a practical context
sets up the mode by which the students are accountable for their own learning, can celebrate the successes and face mistakes without fear, together
sets up activities for peer assessment, feedback and active student engagement in learning
evaluates and monitors own effectiveness and student understanding
uses regular formative and summative assessment to monitor student progress and gain information to drive early intervention strategies and/or inform the next stage in the teaching cycle as well as a framework for reporting to carers
regularly discusses classroom practice and shares ideas with colleagues – is a life-long learner

The teacher is the key to student success.

The LTR Language & Literacy Program provides the tools and the training for teachers to do all of the above. It matches the Australian Curriculum for Primary School English from Foundation to Year 2-3. It provides the sequential and cyclical steps for success. It provides interesting activities, games and discussion points to help students to grasp the concepts. It provides the context for the concepts. It sets up collaborative learning and reporting to train students in personal accountability. It provides ideas for teachers in using embedded formative assessment to inform themselves about student progress and their own future planning for the teaching of concepts.

For more information about LTR Learning (Listen, Think, Respond) and the products that help teachers to meet the Australian Primary School English Curriculum requirements for Foundation/Reception to Year 2-3 students, click on the links.

12 May 2016

Why teach upper & lower case letters, names & sounds of letters all at the same time?

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

Here are some of the reasons why the LTR Language & Literacy Program has such a high expectation of five year old children.

We believe that young children have the capacity to learn all aspects of the English alphabetic code with relative ease. Many children begin school knowing the ABC song and have varying degrees of understanding of letter names. We want to be explicit regarding the use of letter names and the hearing of the sounds. There is a widely held misconception that the names are for the capital (or upper case) letters and the sounds are for the little (or lower case) letters. However, the name is the same for both upper and lower case. The sounds are the same for both upper and lower case and are determined by the letter’s place within a word.

Capital (or upper case) letters are seen by beginning readers from the first time they pick up a book. They see both upper case and lower case when they look at a sentence or read a name. They learn to write their own name, starting with a capital letter. From the beginning, they learn that a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop.

LTR teaches numerous sounds for many letters, such as the 6 or 7 sounds for the single letter ‘a’, two sounds for the single letter ‘c’, two sounds for the letter ‘s’ and so on. The children learn to refer to the letters by name, otherwise confusion reigns. For example, the letter ‘a’ in the word ‘was’ is making a short ‘o’ sound. Therefore we cannot refer to the ‘a’ as ‘short a’ because that is not the sound in this word. To talk about the complexity, we need to use the name of the letter.

Similarly, when we introduce multiple phonograms such as ‘th’, we do not refer to the ‘t’ and the ‘h’ by the separate sounds because we cannot hear those sounds in the phoneme. Accurate information is to learn the names of the two letters that form the grapheme as well as the sound ‘th’ (2 sounds – one with the voice as in ‘this’ and one without the voice as in ‘think’).

Students also need to refer to the letter names when spelling.

For further information about the products provided by LTR Learning (Listen, Think, Respond) and how they meet the Australian Primary School English Curriculum for Foundation/Reception to Year 2 students, click on the links.

12 May 2016

General capabilities – ethical understanding

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

The Australian Curriculum defines the general capabilities as ‘a set of knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that can be developed and applied across the curriculum to help students become successful learners confident and creative individuals and informed citizens’. The Ethical Understanding capabilities are listed as …

understanding ethical concepts and issues
exploring values, rights and responsibilities
reasoning in personal decision-making and actions

These capabilities underpin everything that is done in the LTR Learning classroom as the students give opinions and justify those opinions, respectfully listen to each other, discuss the effect their own actions have on others, consider the consequences of certain actions on themselves, understand about rules and why we have them. They learn to be responsible for their own learning and to cooperate with others in the learning process. They understand that being safe is more than physical but also involves being able to make mistakes, share opinions, ideas and feelings without fear. They have little desire to copy others because each student responds to the tasks according to their own understanding and all responses to tasks are accepted, shared and encouraged. The LTR classroom is a hot-bed of communal learning.

For more information about the products provided by LTR Learning (Listen, Think, Respond) and a matrix of how the program meets the Australian Primary School English Curriculum for Foundation/Reception to Year 2 students, click on the links.

15 Apr 2016

General capabilities – personal and social

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

The Australian Curriculum defines the general capabilities as ‘a set of knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that can be developed and applied across the curriculum to help students become successful learners, confident and creative individuals ad informed citizens’. The Personal and Social Capabilities are …

self-awareness
self-management
social management
social awareness

In the LTR Learning classroom, all students are responsible for their own learning. They report to others, they work in pairs and small groups, they give peer feedback on work efforts and are risk-takers. Therefore, they become confident, enthusiastic, empathetic and independent learners. Celebration of improvement, no matter how small, is embedded in the classroom culture. It is encouraging for all in the classroom when the top student is excited as a struggling student succeeds in a task which has proved difficult. Working together in learning tasks encourages deep interest in each other’s progress.

For more information about the products provided by LTR Learning (Listen, Think, Respond), click on the links.

15 Apr 2016

General capabilities – literacy

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

The Australian Curriculum 8.1 defines the general capabilities as ‘a set of knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that can be developed and applied across the curriculum to help students become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and informed citizens’. The Literacy General Capabilities are …

text knowledge
grammar knowledge
word knowledge
visual knowledge
comprehending texts
composing texts

These capabilities develop in the LTR Learning classroom because the teaching is embedded in a variety of text genre. Phonemic awareness, phonics, grammar, word knowledge and visual knowledge are all learned from texts. Comprehending and composing texts are a daily component of the LTR Learning classroom across all curriculum areas.

For more information about the products of LTR Learning (Listen, Think, Respond) and how they help teachers to meet the Australian Primary School English Curriculum Standards for Foundation/Reception to Year 2 students, click here … LTR Learning and Curriculum

8 Apr 2016

The importance of phonics

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

Why is phonics important?

To be able to hear the sounds of a language and replicate them are the first steps in learning to speak a language.

To become literate, those sounds and speech patterns are linked to a written code (graphemes) which the language uses to produce its literature.

Linking the sounds (phonemes) and the code (graphemes) together is called phonics. The teaching of phonics begins with the simplest and most regular letter code before moving on to more complicated letter and sound combinations.

This applies to any language which has a written alphabetic code. The careful listening and replication of pronunciation goes hand in hand with the learning of the code that represents those individual sounds or syllables. Learning how the code works is fundamental to becoming literate in that language. If the student of a language does not master these fundamental understandings, then guessing becomes the default position of the learner and confidence and the desire to learn the language are often destroyed.

This is why the LTR Language & Literacy Program is built on the foundation of Phonemic Awareness (hearing the sounds in words and being able to manipulate them), Phonics (recognising the code when reading and writing), Spelling (understanding the structure of words) and Grammar (understanding the structure of sentences). All are fundamental to being able to read, write and spell confidently.

For more information about LTR Learning (Listen, Think, Respond) products and how they meet the Australian Primary School English Curriculum for Foundation/Reception to Year 2 students, view Curriculum and Products.

8 Apr 2016

Why is my child not getting 100% in tests?

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

In 2015, a concerned parent asked this question of a Year 2 teacher using the LTR Language & Literacy Program in her classroom. He was concerned that his very capable child was not doing as well as possible in weekly tests.

The teacher explained, “In LTR, we do not test for a score, but for information. Our testing is for the teacher to get information about the gaps in understanding and the student’s ability to rise to a challenge. We learn what to teach next. We don’t teach to test. We test to inform our teaching.”

The LTR Language & Literacy Program provides teachers with many different ways to assess student progress and the mastery of concepts. The cyclical teaching approach which constantly revisits concepts and builds new learning on what is already known, results in deep learning. Many of the assessment ideas are embedded in the daily classroom practice. Weekly tests are designed by the teachers to inform their teaching, to check the mastery of concepts and are deliberately challenging. The students are not daunted by errors as they understand that mistakes are a natural part of learning anything new.

For more information about the LTR Learning products and the program’s correlation with the Australian Primary School English Curriculum for Foundation/Reception to Year 2 students, click Products and Curriculum.

6 Apr 2016

General capabilities – critical and creative thinking

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Articles | 0

The Australian Curriculum defines the general capabilities as ‘as set of knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that can be developed and applied across the curriculum to help students become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and informed citizens’. The Critical and Creative Thinking Capabilities are listed as …

inquiring – identifying, exploring and organising information and ideas
generating ideas, possibilities and actions
reflecting on thinking, actions and processes
analysing, synthesising and evaluating information

In the LTR Learning classroom, students learn to be curious and observant. Discussing ideas, possibilities and actions happens every day, all day. The students learn to think, analyse, conclude, question, form an opinion and justify an opinion. They learn how to respond effectively in different situations. Reflecting on thinking, actions and process is a natural part of the LTR Learning program and the students become confident in all aspects of critical and creative thinking from their first year at school.

For more information on the LTR Learning products and how they meet with the Australian Primary School English Curriculum for Foundation/Reception to Year 2 students, see our Products and Curriculum matrix.

6 Apr 2016

LTR has changed my life as a teacher!

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Testimonials | 0

LTR Learning has changed my life as a teacher! A year ago, after just 3 years of teaching, I felt bored and questioned whether or not teaching was what I wanted to do. I struggled to understand how to extend children and help them all progress. I noticed that children were getting 12/12 in their spelling tests, but were not able to spell simple words correctly in their writing. I also felt frustrated and discouraged because I wasn’t effectively preparing my students for the next year level.

This year I have been introduced to LTR and it has changed the way I teach – not just the way I teach literacy, but the way I teach overall. It has taught me to set a high standard of work in my classroom and give the children the skills to achieve that high standard. I have learned how to challenge children’s thinking skills and that it is important to expect, even demand, children to think, analyze, conclude, question, form an opinion and learn how to respond effectively in different situations.

In my experience, LTR teaches children how to think logically and creatively, how to work in groups, how to respond in a respectful manner, how to respect someone else’s opinion, how to form an opinion and how to communicate their thoughts. It has sparked a love of learning and a culture within the classroom that celebrates and values hard work and progress. All these are important life skills that children should be developing in order to be successful in the future.

I believe that teachers using LTR can change the way they teach, can change the way children learn, can develop young, clever, wise minds that will have a positive impact on our society!

I also believe that LTR is most successful when teachers share with each other their successes and failures, collaborate and work together, celebrate and add to the different gifts, skills and ideas that we all bring to the table.

(Year 2 teacher)

9th October 2015

8 Jan 2016

First Print Run!

by Anne Mitchell | posted in: Events | 0

At LTR Learning we are very pleased that all of our product is being produced in Australia.

On the 29th July 2015 we saw the culmination of many years of work when the first books rolled off the press at Worldwide Printing Solutions (a carbon neutral company) at Norwood in South Australia.

It was a day to celebrate!

Author Archives: Anne Mitchell