'How To' Diagrams and Dual Coding

As we've previously written, we are trying to implement some of what we learned when reading about Dual Coding. 

Here are some of the posters/guides we've made and used in our Year Six classroom as visual guides for our children to use to support/scaffold their learning.

Days in Months of the Year (editable copy)

Long Division (editable copy)

Mixed Number & Improper Fraction Conversions (editable copy)

Co-ordinates (editable copy)

Ascending/Descending (pdf copy)

They've worked for us. They may be useful to you. See links for editable copies. 

The Five Uses of a Comma & Dual Coding

 Well, hello again! Our first post since February - it's been an interesting time (COVID19)!

Over August, we've been doing some reading.

Most recently, we have read 'Dual Coding With Teachers' and have used some of what we learned from that reading to adapt a resource we made earlier in 2020.

At a PiXL Event towards the end of 2019, we came across the revelation that 'commas have five uses in written English'.

So, combining both the information from PiXL and Oliver Caviglioli, we created this:

We're going to give it a go in our Year Six classrooms this coming year. We hope it'll improve the accuracy with which our children use commas when writing. 

Firstly, they need to know the 'five uses' and then link them to the images.

Next, we hope the codes can then be used to jog memories and used as teaching points.

We would be the last to claim to be English specialists, so if you have any feedback on our understanding of this element of English, please let us know.

An up-to-date copy of this resource, if it is changed, will always be here. (Typo corrected).

Personalise Your Posters

As teachers and school leaders, we often seek to inspire pupils (and staff) through motivational wall coverings or put up lots of prompts or reminders for lessons.

These may be created in house, or externally. They may be bespoke, or 'off the shelf'.

Here's something that Sparky Teaching recently made for us. Below are snippets of posters made with teacher's names, class/year group names and school name on to add that element of personalisation to a message.

This isn't just any poster. It's a poster for THIS school, class, group... 

Like them? See more at www.sparkyteaching.com.