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I attended day 1 of the NOEL literacy conference today (I can’t attend day 2 due to family commitments) and was very pleased that I did. I could start with details of the breakfast, which was pretty amazing for a conference buffet, but it was the speakers that really shone.

The day began with children’s author Sheree Fitch. She spoke a lot about the value of poetry, particularly nonsense poetry. She told us how nonsense poetry and tongue-twisters are great ways to get all students involved, because those students who have difficulty with reading can feel safe about making mistakes. It reminded me of something I wrote in a course last summer regarding the use of tongue-twisters in the FSL classroom. The idea was that all students could participate because all of them would make at least some mistakes. They could develop their fluency and have fun while they made mistakes, not something that normally happens.

Probably the most important thing that I took away from her talk was the idea of giving children the chance to find and use their own voice. I will definitely take that with me through the year as a literacy teacher.

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