Literacy training for educators
Customised training for literacy support staff, tutors, teachers and home educators
Building success in supporting older children and teenagers with literacy
If you would like support in helping teens and tweens with their literacy needs, then I can provide literacy training for you.
I currently offer three training workshops:
I’m also happy to provide customised training, so please get in touch if you would like me to put together a course that meets your specific training needs.
Testimonials
“Truly excellent training – I would recommend to anyone working in a school!”
“Very useful and informative – I enjoyed working with ‘real’ spelling errors from pupils!”
“Very interesting session! I loved the participation! I will definitely try to incorporate morphological matrices into my teaching. Excellent training – thank you!”
“Helpful ideas to use in the classroom. I will use the strategies when introducing new vocabulary related to the learning focus. The training included a good level of participation and active learning.”
“Practical, useful and engaging – thank you! It has enabled me to start matching spelling strategies to specific students’ needs. It was excellent – a highly valuable training opportunity!”
“Immediately after the training finished, my colleague and I started discussing how to disseminate the information we had learned with our department and the school. We felt that breaking down words etymologically was really interesting and could be particularly useful in our school due to a high proportion of EAL learners.”
“It was very useful to gain a more thorough understanding of the range of strategies available to us. I particularly like the etymology. The active elements of the training definitely helped to solidify understanding. I will certainly be integrating some of these strategies into my teaching, and starter activities may be a great way to begin. I will be doing further reading as I found it very interesting.”
“I found Dr Katharine fascinating as she explained graphemes and phonemes. Her advice for how to support my lower prior attaining learners and learners with SEND needs was very helpful.”
Workshop 1
LIfTT – An introduction to key concepts and implementation
This course will help you to implement LIfTT (the Literacy Intervention for Teens and Tweens) effectively in your setting. It guides you through the practicalities of assessment and planning, and ensures that you are confident at teaching the core content of LIfTT, including phonics, morphology, etymology and punctuation.
Who is it for?
SENDCo/ALNCo, teaching assistants, home educators, and specialist tutors.
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Full day (5–6 hours, plus breaks)
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Why the literacy needs of adolescents are special
What LIfTT is and how to use it (structure, timetabling, planning, resources, homework)
How to assess students
How to use the LIfTT planning tool to interpret assessment data and create an Intervention Plan
How to use the Teaching Manual to plan lessons
The key concepts within each content area in LIfTT, including:
- How to teach phonics to teenagers;
- How to use word sums and morphological matrices;
- The logic of English orthography;
- The basic story of English and how it has affected spelling;
- Multisyllabic words and how to decode them;
- How to develop fluency and comprehension;
- Teaching vocabulary with Greek and Latin origins;
- An explicit approach to teaching punctuation.
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Yes, I’ll customise the training to your needs. When you make your enquiry, please let me know:
Your setting
Whether you teach one-to-one or in small groups
What you perceive to be the main difficulties of your student(s) (if you wish, send an anonymised sample of their work or data from their assessment)
Your experience (if any) of teaching literacy.
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£280 fee for one person, plus £60 for each extra person within your setting (up to a maximum of 6 people).
Mileage over 20 miles from Llantrisant is charged at £0.45 per mile.
In-person training is only available for schools or other education centres.
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For schools or other education centres:
£300 for one person, plus £40 for each extra person within your setting (up to a maximum of 6 people).
For individuals (tutors or home educators):
£250 for a one-to-one full day training session.
If you know of other educators who would like to share your session, I can offer a reduced rate. If you are interested in a shared session, please let me know when you get in touch.
Workshop 2
How to support spelling in the secondary school classroom
Secondary teachers and teaching assistants are often expected to support spelling in their classroom, but frequently lack training in this area. This workshop introduces teachers to the English spelling system, and explains why it isn’t as irregular as it first seems! It equips teachers with a range of practical strategies to tackle different kinds of spelling error by helping students to understand why words are spelled as they are.
Who is it for?
Classroom teachers and teaching assistants at secondary school.
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2 hours
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The kinds of spelling errors that are often made by secondary students
Why English spelling isn’t ‘crazy’ or ‘full of exceptions’
An introduction to phonics, morphology, orthography and etymology, so that teachers are confident about how English spelling works
How to choose the most effective strategies to help students to spell specific words
How to integrate spelling strategies into vocabulary teaching
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£250
Mileage over 20 miles from Llantrisant is charged at £0.45 per mile.
In-person training is only available for schools or other education centres.
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Online via a live session
£200 (a maximum of 12 participants).
Workshop 3
An integrated approach to teaching vocabulary in the secondary classroom
When students learn a new word, they need to learn not just the meaning, but also the pronunciation and the spelling. This requires an integrated approach to teaching vocabulary, where connections between sounds, spelling and meaning are made explicit.
This workshop ensures that teachers understand the structure of words so that they can confidently support students who find it difficult to learn and retain new vocabulary, and also challenge more advanced learners to find meaningful connections between complex words.
Who is it for?
Classroom teachers at secondary school.
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2 hours
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The impact of poor vocabulary on attainment and life-chances
Which pupils are most affected by poor vocabulary
How to select words to teach explicitly
What is meant by an integrated approach to vocabulary
An introduction to phonology (sounds), morphology (the structure of words), orthography (spelling) and etymology (the history of words)
Practical routines for implementing vocabulary teaching in an integrated way that incorporates in-depth discussion of word-meanings alongside morphology, phonology, etymology and spelling.
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£250
Mileage over 20 miles from Llantrisant is charged at £0.45 per mile.
In-person training is only available for schools or other education centres.
-
£200 (a maximum of 12 participants).
Customised training
If you have particular training needs on any topic mentioned on this website, please get in touch and I’ll do what I can to assist you.
In addition, if you’d like guidance about how to support a particular student with their literacy, I can set up a customised session to talk you through the teaching approaches that are likely to benefit them the most.