Matt Glover

How to Become a Better Writing Teacher is a hands-on, practical guide for teachers looking to improve their writing instruction. Carl and Matt offer 50 high-impact actions teachers can take to level up key aspects of their practice, including: getting to know your students as people and assessing them as writersincreasing student engagement in writingbecoming curriculum decision-makersindividualizing instructionconnecting students to mentor authors. Over 70 videos bring the content to life with Carl and Matt demonstrating key lessons and strategies in diverse classrooms. An extensive set of online resources and downloadable teaching tools give you everything you need to start becoming a better writing teacher tomorrow.

If you believe that all students should have opportunities to write in genres of their choice but aren't sure how, Matt Glover is here to help. In Craft and Process Studies, Matt makes a compelling case for raising student engagement and writing quality by allowing students to choose the genre they want to write in. Then he shows you how with 17 possible units, divided into craft and process studies, that teach important writing skills while also providing opportunities for choice of genre. Matt uses a predictable structure for each unit that includes suggestions for: - applicable grade ranges - time of year to try - key unit goals and questions - mentor texts - minilesson topics - conferring goals. With key teaching points, ideas for how to fit the units into your existing curriculum, and strategies to overcome common roadblocks, Matt gives you all the specific how-to's for implementing the studies even in school settings where writing units are already set. And with 40 classroom videos, you'll see the power of this work in action.

Phonic Limerick Friends is a fun, practical way to enhance children's phonic understanding and enable them to see phonic sounds in context. This resource contains 26 humorous limericks, one for each of the letters of the alphabet. Each short, funny poem features a cute alliterative character such as Alfie Ant or Zo Zebra. Children soon become familiar with these characters; it's very rewarding when they pick up a picture book to enthusiastically point out a Hannah the Horse word or an Alfie the Ant word. By showing phonemes in context in a funny little poem, rather than simply decoding a list of words, we are encouraging a love of reading from the very beginning - which is, of course, the reason we teach children to read in the first place! Children will enjoy and remember these amusing, creative limericks and this will help them internalise the link between the grapheme (what the letter looks like) and the phoneme (the letter sound). So when they see the letter 'j' they will think of Jenny the Jet, for example, and be able to visualise her jumping into a juicy jelly. The limericks also allow children to see and hear the phonic sound repeatedly in context. Each limerick contains at least 8 words containing the phonic sound that is being focused on, so for 'j', for example they see and hear: Jenny, jet, jumbo, jumper, jams, jiggles, jump, juicy, jelly.