I wonder if the range of approaches will be based on any principles and if so what they are?  The article talks about formative assessment but what about summative assessment?

What should the principles be that underlie an assessment system?  Perhaps we need to go back to this research based document : The 10 Priniciples of AfL.

I look forward to the signposts and to hearing from the NAHT about the ways forward.

This is not the usual sort of book that I would choose as a favourite, but I have fallen in love with it.  The pages are clearly laid out and the text is not too dense.  Every table in a classroom should have one of these on it so that children can refer to it easily and regularly.

What I like most about it are the themed word boxes, some of which are for particular genre.  Now you might start to see why I like it so much!  For instance the fantasy box has different characters and settings that are used in fantasy stories.  The lists make a great model for collecting vocabulary for the text type that you are working on at the  moment but also provide a wonderful list of words that can be used for warming up the word activities, from talk for writing, that allow the children to roll the language over their tongues and eventually for it to become their own.

One game it lends itself to is ‘Usual words in unusual combinations’. Most of the words in the lists are adjectives and nouns and so work well together.  Children could pick words from different columns and put them together to see how they sound.  The trick is to do this quickly and not to worry if the phrase doesn’t sound right.  I came up with

• terrifying, tangled curse
• mesmerising, hushed library
• bewitching, impenetrable swamp

You get the idea.

Children could also use the ideas on these themed lists to create a story as the characters and settings plus problems are all there.

Another way the book could be used is to look up a usual word that is overused in writing, e.g. angry and look up the synonyms for the word.  Taking a paint chart sample, children then order the words in terms of intensity and record them on the sample card.  These can then be displayed and children encouraged to choose a different word to fit the context they are writing about.

Other great activities for using a thesaurus can be found by clicking on the links below:

• Describing a person
• Classroom activites with a thesaurus

What is your favourite book at the moment?  Here is a favourite from Grammar Puss.

The bank holiday weekend has given me plenty of time to reflect upon the day, whilst pulling bindweed out of my garden, and to make links with what I know about learning in literacy.

What became really clear to me was how David inspired the children to write.  Blogging was the tool that allowed the children to write at home and at school but it was the audience for the writing that really got the children going.  David reported that some of his children had written 100,000 words on their blogs and this is not just at school but at home as well – in fact for some children mostly at home!  For me this linked with one of my project schools who have been focusing on increasing the amount that children read.  The outcome of this is increased levels in reading attainment, improved perceptions of themselves as learners and readers and an improvement in writing.  If just reading more can do this, then writing more must have a similar impact.  Practise makes perfect!

David showed us what it was to listen to children and to be driven by their needs.  This was a theme which flowed throughout the day and shows us that insisting on a specfic way of using the blogs is counterproductive.  Each class must find their own way with the blog but audience is critical.  An interested audience on twitter can really help here.  Who knows where your connections might take you.

I loved the use of QR codes in literacy books to take you to the blog post that the writing had set up and the responses from around the world.

At half past three were all still working on our tools for the blog that we had set up , no one was clock watching adn we had new people on twitter and 40 classrooms with blogs ready for children to use.  I look forward to reading  posts from children in these classes.

Thank you David.  It was fantastic!

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Because grammar will be boring for those who have to put up with 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 years of this.

Because grammar should be fun.

Because grammar teaching should take place in context with authentic texts and discussion about the  impact.

Because preparation for the test is important but only needs 3 or 4 weeks.

Because if we don’t hold on to what is important in grammar teaching, no one else will.

Here is one to get us started.  As you will see, they are usually based on games/activities we all know but adapted in some way.  This one is called Matching with Meaning and is based on the matching pictures and sentences activity.  It’s purpose is to ensure that children are not just decoding the words but focusing on meaning through linking the text and images so I try not to make all the images too literal.  It is an activity for the apply part of a phonics session.

You will need a range of words, captions or sentences for the children to read .  I usually try to use 3for each pair of children  but it will depend upon the reading speed of your class.  The differentiation is found in terms of the amount of text that you give a child or pair to read and the phase from which it comes.  Some children at the very beginning of phase 2 will have 3 words, those in phase 5 will have 3 sentences using the phonemes they are working on and anything  in between these two that is needed.

On the whiteboard, images are shown that link to the words, captions and sentences that the children have and when they have something that links with the image they stand up and read it to the class.  There are some interesting discussions when more than one pair stand up because then the class need to decide if they are both right or not.

You will find the resources for this activity here.

What’s your favourite activity that allows for differentiation for the whole class?

The book tells the story of Fox, Chicken and Crab who open the fridge to find the cupboard bare.  Chicken and Crab then go off on a fishing trip to catch some food.  They catch a large fish, only for a cross eagle-type bird to catch hold of the fish and drag Chicken and Crab off.  They end up entangled with a nasty-looking sea-snake and escape back home.  There a big surprise awaits them and I laughed out loud when I turned to the last page and saw what they were having for tea.

The book would work particularly well with units of literacy in Yrs2 – 4 where a traditional tale is being looked at, as the story lends itself to that type of story telling.  It would fit into the capturing ideas part of a teaching sequence providing a structure for children to retell their own story.  We are in discussion about the blueprint – voyage and return or quest. It fits both and the one you would choose would be dependent upon how strongly you felt the desire was to go on a journey to solve the problem of no food .

I was delighted to see that there were  more books in the series: The Chicken Thief, Fox and Hen Together, Rooster’s Revenge  and The Treasure Thief due out at the end of this month. I am going to have to start collecting them!

Have you come across any good books recently?

This book is the antonym of cumulative – I am not sure what that is!  Decumulate?  When I looked it up it is subtractive which makes sense.  So, this book has a subtractive structure due to the fact that there is a shopping list and as Sally visits each shop she is able to cross an item off her list of 10 items.

This book would be great for anyone looking at their local environment and able to visit local shops, draw them and study what they have to sell in them.  It would also work well for Yr1 in the autumn term to go with the labels, lists and captions block of work.

Each page of the shop is folded over so that when you open it you can see the inside of the shop, both downstair and upstairs.  This will involve children in detailed drawings of the shop fronts and what they imagine to be upstairs.

This is a wonderful book that deserves to be on our texts that teach list is a model that children can innovate upon or use to invent.  For invent I was thinking of a Yr1 class I have been recently working with who have used Tell Me a Dragon as a model to write about the animals that they had visited at the zoo.  Before they went the class had drawn up a list of animals that they wanted to see.  Instead of a version of The High Street, the children could create a version called The Zoo where they cross the animals off their list once they have seen them.

If you are thinking about the things that we need to teach children prior to the Yr6 end of KS2 grammar test, this book shows the use of the possesive apostrophe well.

That aside, it is wonderful!

In fact I thought I never wanted to see another set if instructions for a cup of tea until I found Alice Melvin’s wonderful little book  Fancy a Brew? a guide to the perfect cuppa

What I love most about this book is that it is about paper folding, writing and illustrating (that’s just about everything about the book).

The book is made out of out of 2 pieces of paper folded in the middle with a cardboard cover sewn on.  The front and back cover open out to show what is needed to make the perfect cuppa, a table where you can fill in where and when you had a perfect cuppa and then at the end a tea bag stapled in to make a cuppa with.

The writing is uncomplicated and the illustrations are beautiful.  Similar illustrations could be created with a black felt pen and one other colour.

This is just a fantastic way to present your instructions.  The book reminds me of Paul Johnson’s book Literacy Through the Book Arts which is all about paper folding and pop-ups as a way to stimulate and present children’s work.

I am waiting for a copy of her latest book The High Street to arrive.  It looks like it might be a contender for our texts that teach books.

Did you get any good books for christmas?