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3 proofreading habits that improve writing
How you can improve students' writing with proofreading habits.

Sue de Lautour
Apr 7, 20244 min read


Lifting the Lid on Daily Lesson Planning: Realities and Ideas
What’s everyone else doing? Am I the only one still searching for that holy grail of planning systems? Am I the only one muddling...

Sue de Lautour
Mar 14, 20248 min read


12 things I know about Unfamiliar Texts
The close reading of unfamiliar texts is my favourite part of English teaching. Here are 12 things I think it's important to remember....

Sue de Lautour
Feb 29, 20247 min read


How EVERY student can achieve academic success
Let me tell you how a tiny, traditional test can help all students learn and see how academically amazing they are. Yes, all ...

Sue de Lautour
Feb 14, 20246 min read


Lesson differentiation made easy - a sustainable strategy! Like, 'actual' :)
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel for each ability level in your class. Here’s an easy way to break your lesson into three...

Sue de Lautour
Jan 31, 20245 min read


Cope with NCEA Review information overload with THE HANDY THING!
Curriculum changes like NZ's NCEA Review mean learning about new websites, new experts, new vocabulary, new assessments, new philosophies...

Sue de Lautour
Oct 27, 20234 min read


What the HECK is structure in English?!
Here’s my road to teaching structure in my English classroom: First 10 years: Didn't know ‘structure’ was a thing I should be teaching. ...

Sue de Lautour
Oct 12, 20233 min read


List and Funnel! A strategy to teach how aspects of texts WORK TOGETHER!
Teach students how aspects of texts work together with this simple 'list and funnel' strategy.

Sue de Lautour
Sep 17, 20234 min read


Embedding Mātauranga Māori into your English classroom: a mind-blowing strategy to get started!
Using texts by Māori creators is fantastic, but ignoring everyone else is going to limit students’ understanding of the world, robbing...

Sue de Lautour
Sep 5, 20234 min read


Feel the data love - The BEST way to graph and analyse class data
So many of us teachers hate graphing and analysing our data! It's one more job, NOT in that 'Urgent and Important' box, done just to...

Sue de Lautour
Aug 16, 20234 min read


SEE the writer behind the lines when close reading. Fun activity!
I wasn't convinced my Year 13s (grade 12) were appreciating that there really was a person - an actual real-life person like us - who...

Sue de Lautour
Aug 3, 20233 min read


Close reading - tone and mood made easy!
I’d rather clean the house, iron, grocery shop…anything other than clean my car. It’s too exhausting, there are too many tools to get...

Sue de Lautour
Jul 20, 20233 min read


Improve proofreading by helping students HEAR their writing - a FUN way to improve sentence structure!
Your students must be able to read their work aloud, paying attention to punctuation, before they can proofread it. This requires training!

Sue de Lautour
Jul 6, 20234 min read


Teach the possessive apostrophe with this ONE simple trick!
This trick for teaching possessive apostrophes will save you and your students a lot of frustration.

Sue de Lautour
Jun 21, 20232 min read


The ONE WORD that helps students write about ideas in studied texts.
Students often make two mistakes when writing about ideas in texts they study in English. Take this charming sentence for example: The...

Sue de Lautour
Jun 8, 20233 min read


Four ways to have students buy into the writing PROCESS.
Four ways to have students buy into the writing process to embrace style conventions and enhance their work.

Sue de Lautour
May 12, 20234 min read


Differentiation: one EASY strategy to differentiate lessons in minutes.
In a hurry? Cut straight to the summary! Differentiation is a dumb word but a common-sense concept. It's about making things different ...

Sue de Lautour
Feb 23, 20236 min read


Why Marking Students' Books is KEY to Enhancing Literacy ...and more!
English departments ramping up their literacy programmes. Hours of work have gone into designing regular literacy programmes, a tonne of...

Sue de Lautour
Oct 11, 20228 min read


Improve Writing Skills with the Daily Dash!
Students have 15 minutes to write a response, record a memory, write the first paragraph of a story that begins with a squashed sandwich…...

Sue de Lautour
Jun 23, 20224 min read


20 Sequenced Approaches to Reading - how to teach reading literacy at high school
Teach reading literacy at high school: Let’s face it, so many high school teachers missed out on training in literacy – specifically, how...

Sue de Lautour
Jan 23, 20225 min read
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