In this episode, Claire talks to Kelly Ashley a former teacher and current Primary English Specialist and author. Kelly starts by explaining how she moved from America to the UK. She explains her experience of the American schooling system as a teenager and young adult. She also talks about her university journey and what options were available to her. After choosing various subjects including anthropology, sociology and child psychology, Kelly decided to choose teaching as her career. She completed a two-year teaching course in America and, after meeting her husband, made moved countries.
After qualifying and moving to North Carolina, Kelly visited different schools to secure a teaching job. She successfully found work in a large 5-form entry school as a Grade 3 (Year 2) class teacher. As she gained experience within the school, Kelly didn’t shy away from leadership roles and climbed up the ladder relatively swiftly. However, she explains how she left the school, and America, after meeting her future husband and moved to the UK.
After teaching for 6 years in America and halfway to completing her master’s degree, Kelly’s transition to the UK as a teacher was not as straight forward as she would have wished for. She was informed that she needed to requalify as a teacher to teach in the UK and she later requalified through the Graduate Teaching Programme.
In this podcast, Kelly talks about her journey as a teacher in the US and UK. She talks about the transition from the different countries as a teacher and how she became an English specialist. Throughout the podcast, Kelly compares the different schooling systems and the cultures in America and the UK. She shares the various strategies she has established and refined over the years to support children with closing the vocabulary gap, as well as aiding them to ensure they are exposed to a well-rich and well-versed environment. She talks about her book and how it can support teachers in the classroom.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Reading and writing workshop in AmericaIn this workshop, the teacher models a piece of text and the children have the opportunity to craft a text of their own. The workshops focused on children writing about personal interests. The text is explored as a reader and writer and how language and the language features can be used to portray a certain message. The workshop did not have a text-focused approach due to the pressures of the curriculum.


Improving the vocabulary of reluctant readersFinding a way to help children develop a love of reading can start with identifying their interests. Share stories to heighten children’s engagement. The more teachers do this, the more it will help to connect with children’s personal interests and their personal understanding. It is all about that motivation and understanding. Provide children with a range of texts and encourage them to read different texts based on their interest. Recommend different texts types and books to help children develop their vocabulary and engagement with different texts.


Closing the word gapTalk, talk and talk. In order to close the gap for children that don’t have a wealth of language under the age of 3, it is essential to interact and communicate with them verbally. It is important to acknowledge the extent of word and text knowledge children have at the age of three. If they have not been exposed to nursery rhymes or stories, they will not have a wealth of vocabulary.Firstly, it is important to understand the amount of talk used with children. Secondly, how we can extend the talk to dialogical talk. Dialogical talk – clarifying or asking a follow up question to an answer given or link it to personal experience and have a back and forth conversation.


Develop on children’s answersWhen children respond to answers, develop and ask questions about their answers with new vocabulary. Engage and keep children interacted with the dialogue and associate words to the experience to help them broaden their vo