The Year 5 boys have explored a number of environmental issues as a part of our current unit of inquiry into animal adaptations. In addition to this they read a number of persuasive texts related to the environment and environmental issues which led to the boys researching an issue and writing their own persuasive letter to the Prime Minister with a particular focus on the ‘Word Choice’ writing trait.

We have now moved onto Non-Fiction texts for our reading and writing workshops and this has seen the boys in Year 5 build IKEA boxes (following visual instructions and working collaboratively) and selecting non-fiction texts of interest that we are reading as a class and independently to identify and understand the features of these forms of text and the similarities and differences that exist between all texts. Following on from this we’ll be writing many informative texts… Keep an eye out for some examples in future editions of Prep Talk.

Readers and writers workshop is a method of instruction that often requires a paradigm shift, a shift from the teacher making all the choices and telling students what to learn within a text, to students making choices, and through practice and application of skills-based lessons, learning as they read and write.