On the couch, we chat with Alessandra, Literacy Adviser 7 - 12, Secondary English and EAL/D teacher, and self-confessed bookworm. 

Alessandra fell in love with language and has dedicated her career to literacy, and more recently, helping to guide teaching practice in this area. Her key message: literacy is everyone’s business.

We talk about strategies for embedding literacy across various subjects and curriculum areas, especially when it comes to the critical tasks of reading, comprehension and building a student’s vocabulary.

Looking for practical tools and resources? We have you covered. You’ll hear about key strategies including the gradual release of responsibility when teaching literacy, strategies for building confidence in writing and the power of teacher talk when modelling fluency in reading.

We bust the myth that learning to read is a silent activity and explore how you can bring reading to life in the classroom, from dramatising texts to using props and gamification to help build student engagement.

In the words of Alessandra, in the big, wide world of literacy, making incremental changes in teaching practice is the best place to start.

We hope you enjoy this episode.

We acknowledge that this episode of the Teach NSW Podcast was recorded on the homelands of the Darug people. We pay respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples listening to the Teach NSW Podcast today.

Connect with us

If you would like to provide feedback or suggestions for future episodes, please contact teachnsw@det.nsw.edu.au to get in touch with the Teach NSW Podcast team. Follow the Teach NSW team on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter) and YouTube to be the first to know when new episodes are released.

Resources and useful links

• Teach NSW - become a teacher in a NSW public school and find out how a career in teaching can open doors for you.


• Statewide Staffrooms - join the literacy Statewide Staffroom to connect and share advice, resources and learnings with other teachers in NSW public schools.


• Literacy resources for schools - professional learning and resources for NSW public school teachers for explicit teaching of reading and writing through the secondary curriculum.


• National Literacy and Numeracy Learning Progressions - developed by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and the NSW Department of Education, the progressions can be used to identify the literacy and numeracy development of students and the development that should follow.