Effective Literacy Website #2 : TheLiteracyShed

Cheryl Habuchmai

ED 638 Fall Intersession 2018

Dr. M. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

The Literacy Shed (https://www.literacyshed.com/about.html) is an interesting website home to a wealth of visual resources collected over 10 years to all primary school teachers.  The sheds are broadly thematic but sometimes a resource could go in 2 or more sheds, I slot it in where I think it works best. On the homepage of this website you will see little information on what the website will give you. The interesting part of it is that it gives teachers short clips of a variety of stories good for children to watch. It also includes a reading which helps teachers know the moral of the each stories and can help teachers question students more on what happened in the video.
Most of the resources can be used in KS1 and KS2 but some do lend themselves to the upper age group and above and therefore should be used with caution.  The aim is to provide high quality resources that can be used in standalone literacy lessons, can form the basis for a whole Literacy unit or can support literacy units that you already have in place.  With the many book based activities I would advocate using the book alongside the digital resource.

This site is intended for use by teachers to use with the children in the class when they find the films relevant and suitable.  Many of the films on the site are student short films so have not been classified by the BFi as U, PG, etc so teachers should watch films and use those that they deem appropriate for the children in their care.

At www.literacyshed.com they have also added some classifications to the films such as KS1, KS2, KS2+ and KS3, and these are guidelines only. I want to talk about one thing that stands out from the literacy shed website and that is showing how modeling excites writers like Adam Bushnell, Rob Smith and David Waugh.

In order to teach writing effectively, teachers must be able to model writing effectively to children. The Primary National Curriculum, sets challenging expectations for the teaching of writing. Children must master the process of composition, redrafting, editing and writing final pieces. Increased emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar may leave some teachers and trainee teachers lacking ideas for developing children's writing beyond transcription and into composition. It is important that they are able to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding, as well as the practical applications of both transcriptional and compositional aspects of writing