Christine is currently working as an education consultant. She has previously worked as a school leader, literacy coach, early childhood teacher and university lecturer, and has authored a number of publications. Christine has led literacy action research projects in reading comprehension and writing. She has presented nationally and internationally in a range of areas, including spelling, writing, reading comprehension, early years literacy and leading literacy improvement in schools. Christine was awarded ALEA life membership in 2009; the AITSL Award for Excellence in Teaching and School Leadership in 2013 and the Australian Professional Teachers Association Meritorious Contribution to the Profession Award in 2013.

Deirdre Arendt is an experienced educator and a current school principal with a lifelong passion on the teaching of literacy.

Learning activities demonstrate ways to explicitly teach the five key spelling strategies and provide prompts for teachers to encourage students to recall and use the strategies when writing or learning new words:

Sound – focusing on sounds

Visual – noticing letter patterns in words

Meaning – thinking about the meaning, structure and origin of words

Connecting – making connections between words

Checking – making use of a range of resources