Parents know their children best and can be powerful advocates for ensuring their child’s needs are adequately met within the classroom.

This workshop also focuses on developing a document that clearly summarises the important information a school needs to know about each child with a learning difficulty or disability.

Each parent will be able to compile a user-friendly summary that can be distributed to the relevant school staff and will be guided through practical and positive strategies for communicating with their child’s school.

Presenter: Kim Bloor, BA (Hons), MPsych (Ed. & Dev.), Dip. Ed, (Spec. Ed.). Kim is a Psychologist at DSF Literacy and Clinical Services where she assesses children, teenagers, and adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. She also consults with parents on appropriate evidence-based classroom and individual strategies to improve literacy.

To register please click on the link below:

Download a registration form

In this practical full-day workshop the recently released DSF Learning Difficulties Guide will be reviewed and effective ways to make use of it explored. Successful strategies for assisting students with developmental learning disorders, such as dyslexia, will be identified.

The Guide includes a wealth of valuable information and a comprehensive overview of evidence-based remediation and accommodation strategies. In addition it details: the visible signs of learning disorders; effective teaching and accommodation strategies; diagnostic criteria; and, issues such as self-esteem and dyslexia-friendly schools.

Presenter: Mandy Nayton is the Executive Officer of DSF Literacy and Clinical Services. She is an educational and developmental psychologist and qualified teacher with extensive experience in the field of literacy education. Mandy supports schools with literacy planning and recommends appropriate classroom-based and individual strategies for struggling students.

To download the registration form please click on the link below
Download a registration form

This two day workshop offers teachers an overview of the T4W approach and provides an opportunity to trial each of the component steps of this exceptionally effective instructional approach. Suitable for teachers of Kindergarten through to year 6. This workshop has been particularly scheduled for regional teaching staff and they will be given priority.

Part One: Selecting the text, story mapping and text mapping
…. providing an understanding of how to select an appropriate text for instructional purposes; and, the process of both story mapping and text mapping. In addition, the method of orally learning a story, using actions, will be explored.
Part Two: Reading as a Reader, Reading as a Writer and ‘boxing up the text’
…. providing an understanding of the skills children need to dissect a text and internalise the successful writing techniques utilised when ‘Reading as a Reader’ and ‘Reading as a Writer’.
Part Three: Shared writing, sentence games and grammar
…. focuses on assisting children to develop the component skills of composition through the process of carefully structured and modelled shared writing. A range of creative warm-ups and sentence-level games will also be trialled.
Part Four: Providing student feedback and formative assessment
…. offering participants an understanding of how to accurately assess writing and give effective feedback to extend children’s learning. This session will also be an opportunity for participants to share and discuss collected samples of work.

Presenter Sam Holyer: Sam is a Primary School Teacher, originally from the UK and now teaching in Perth. She has extensive experience in using the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach, having worked in one of the UK ‘Talk for Writing’ training schools, where she was the Key Stage 2 Literacy Coordinator. She has worked with Pie Corbett, who developed ‘Talk for Writing’ on the ‘Transforming Writing’ action research project and is currently working as a Literacy Specialist at DSF.

To download the registration form please click on the link below:
115E Talk for Writing 2 day