- Friday 10 March 2023
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Pffft, what’s taking those writers so long? Why are they wasting time? Just get typing!
I wish I could just write, but my brain goes on a long journey before I even commit my fingers to
the keyboard. My thoughts travel through every box in my brain, and then I know I have to bring
everything back and make it all comprehensive.
If my brain was a physical space, it would have many shelves full of grammar rules and vocabulary,
filing cabinets brimming with curriculums from around the world, baskets overflowing with lesson
ideas, ever-present piles of pedagogical practices (fancy way of saying ‘best way to teach’) and of
course, glaring deadlines!
This fusion of a writer-brain and an educator-brain makes for some interesting times!
Being an educator first, I feel it is my responsibility to think like an educator and imagine how
what I’m writing will work for other educators, and make their jobs easier, while still providing a
quality product. I know it sounds cheesy but it’s true. It’s what our company has historically strived to
achieve. Of course, this requires researching, planning, collaborating, reflecting and everything
else an educator does in the classroom—the difference being that writers’ classrooms are in our
heads.
So, yes, others may be able to write something quickly and pull content together to create a
resource, but we want to write something that we are proud of as educators. And we need to go
through every shelf, filing cabinet, basket and pile in the ‘house’!
It is no surprise that learners also face a similar brain-drain when it comes to writing. We want
them to come up with an interesting piece of text in the space of a literacy lesson while their
little minds are considering comprehension, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. Maybe they just need
a little more time, and a little more practice, to be able to learn how to organise the shelves and
filing cabinets in their brains.
This can easily be achieved with the selection of English boxes we have available. I like that they
break down the specific skills needed to be fluent writers and readers. The resources also cater to
learners who think and learn differently, as they offer differentiation and flexibility of use.
The Comprehension Strategies Boxes break fiction and nonfiction text into numbered paragraphs, with
corresponding questions—making for a versatile style of teaching. This series is well researched
and consists of proven strategies to support educators to unlock their learners’ reading and
comprehension ability. These strategies include predicting, visualising, making connections,
questioning, clarifying, summarising, determining importance, inferring, and synthesising.
When children connect the skills of spelling, reading, comprehension and grammar with their
imaginations, they naturally become better writers. Remember, these skills click into place at
different stages for everyone, but, when they do, anything’s possible.
Michele
Educator, writer and parent