Show Notes
In this episode, Jocelyn pushes back on all-day, scripted, tightly paced instruction in Foundation to Year 2 while defending responsive, teacher-led explicit instruction as essential for learning across the curriculum. She explains why young children need a better-designed school day with movement, talk, and purposeful guided play so they can regulate, engage, and learn more. Has something in this episode resonated with you? Get in touch! Get ready for 2027! Explore our expe...
More from The Structured Literacy Podcast
Dramatic play, screen-free singing and nursery rhymes deserve a place back in the early years classroom. Part two of this series makes that case with a structured literacy lens. The episode covers using café role-play to build the background knowledge texts assume. It shows how songs at transition times can double as phonological awareness practice. It also looks at why “tuffet” and “curds and whey” still earn their keep. Throughout, the line stays clear: these practices aren’t reading ...
With a quarter of Australian children starting school developmentally vulnerable or at risk in communication and general knowledge, Jocelyn asks whether the answer to Tier 1 language support might be bringing back early childhood practices we let go of in the shift to explicit teaching, rather than buying a new program. Part one of this two part series covers the first two practices: big books, for concepts of print, shared language experiences and interactive read-alouds, and puppets, ...
When your phonics screening check results make your stomach drop, what do you actually do next? In this return episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast, Jocelyn treats the check like a blood pressure reading: it tells you whether to look closer, and the score sheets tell you where. She explains how to tell students who know the code but stumbled on the format (special hint: alien names) from those with real gaps, and why accent is never an error. She also covers why whole-class phonic...
This episode is a little different. Australia's national education evidence body, AERO, has just released a guidance report that puts rigorous research weight behind something many educators have long known: most professional development doesn't work — and the reasons why are predictable and fixable. In this episode, Jocelyn uses AERO's findings to reflect on six years of Jocelyn Seamer Education, share what's changing about the Structured Literacy Podcast, and introduce the brand new L...
Has something in this episode resonated with you? Get in touch! Get ready for 2027! Explore our expert-led professional learning and development options in literacy strategy and explicit teaching. Visit our website to discover programs tailored for your school, from 12-month partnerships and action-focused teach-along courses to leader programs that promote real classroom impact. Partner with us to empower your team and make lasting changes that connect to everyday teaching. Boost your stude...