Tag Archives: teaching resources for the first three years of school

Wishing you a Happy 2022 New Year – #readilearn

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Dear readers and supporters,

I thank you for your support throughout 2021 and wish you all a very happy, healthy and successful 2022.

While Covid still pulled more strings on our lives than we had expected at the end of 2020, I hope that you have been able to achieve at least some of your goals and ambitions in 2021.

Happy 5th Birthday, readilearn!

In August of this year, we celebrated readilearn’s 5th birthday. It’s an achievement of which I’m proud. Five years seemed such a long time in the future when I began. Now, looking back, it’s gone so fast. I have continued to post a weekly article on the blog, publish a newsletter each month, and upload new resources throughout the year so that the collection now numbers over 500. I hope you have had the opportunity to use many of them with your children.

New Books by Norah Colvin at Library For All

In addition to the work for readilearn, I had twelve more stories added to the Library For All collection. You can read about them here.

I also wrote three phonic workbooks for Pascal Press which should be available for purchase early in the new year. Look out for the Targeting Phonics series.

And I continue to write manuscripts for picture books hoping that one day I will see a picture book with my name on the spine on the shelves of book stores and libraries. It’s been a goal since my childhood. One day …

Goals help us move forward. Without goals and without hope, life may stagnate and become dull. I hope it never does for you.

As we move into another new year, I share with you two quotes about hope that inspire me:

Continue reading: Wishing you a Happy 2022 New Year – readilearn

A New Activity Book Just in Time for Christmas – #readilearn

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In this post, I am sharing information about a new Christmas Activity Book I have recently complied and uploaded to the readilearn collection. It is a 30-page booklet with 20 different activities and is perfect for 5 ̶ 7 year-old children to use at home or in the classroom.

The book includes:

  • games to play alone
  • games to play with others
  • literacy activities
  • maths activities
  • word puzzles
  • number puzzles
  • logic puzzles
  • poems to write
  • and much more.

Some of the activities are already available as separate items in the readilearn collection, but not available together. More than half the activities are new. I decided to put them together in one book for ease of printing and distributing. You still have the option to print pages separately if you prefer, but you have access to all 20 activities in one document.

Continue reading: A New Activity Book Just in Time for Christmas – readilearn

November days to celebrate in the classroom

Special Days and Events for Classroom Celebrations — November – #readilearn

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It’s November already and we’re starting the countdown to the end of the year, but there are many more things to celebrate before we welcome in the new year.

The month starts off in a wonderful way by celebrating reading with Australia Reads from 1 – 12 November. I don’t think there can ever be too many days to celebrate reading, literacy and literature.

The Australia Reads Kids digital event on Monday 9 November at 10.30 am is free for all Australian schools. For other events, including interviews with authors and digital story readings, check out this list. Events most days. The site also has some suggestions of great books for children at different year levels.

The week culminates on 12 November with the Reading Hour, when everyone is asked to drop everything and read! What a great excuse to spend more time reading and sharing the love of literature. You can read to yourself or read to the children.

You can join up at the Australia Reads website to take the pledge too (and even make your own logo, as I did):

“I will read for an hour on Thursday 12 November.
I will read books in any shape, form or size.
I will read, whether with bumps, letters, pictures, sound.
I will read to myself or someone else.”

Outdoor Classroom Day on 5 November is a perfect time for taking children outdoors to learn and explore. The day is “a global campaign to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning and play.” This year’s theme is Love the Outdoors.

Continue reading: Special Days and Events for Classroom Celebrations — November – readilearn

celebrating reading and writing on International Literacy Day

readilearn: Celebrating reading and writing on International Literacy Day

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Tomorrow is International Literacy Day. It has been celebrated on 8 September for over fifty years. The purpose of the day is to remind the international community of the importance of literacy and to eradicate illiteracy around the world. It values literacy education for young people the world over. This year’s theme is Literacy and skills development and focuses on the integration of literacy with other skills to enhance people’s lives and employment opportunities.

In our early childhood classrooms, the focus is always on the development of literacy. A strong foundation in both reading and writing enables children to be more successful learners at school and independent learners out of school. It provides them with skills essential to full participation in and contribution to our world. While we may not be ostensibly training them for future employment, the literacy skills they learn in early childhood form the foundation upon which that learning develops.

The idea of integrating literacy development with other skills is not unfamiliar to early childhood classrooms. The most effective approaches focus on teaching skills in meaningful contexts rather than in isolation.

In celebration of International Literacy Day this year, I have uploaded some new resources to the literacy collection. As with other readilearn literacy resources, the focus is on teaching literacy skills in context.

Continue reading: readilearn: Celebrating reading and writing on International Literacy Day