Professional development options
and workshops

Sheena Cameron facilitates professional learning in the areas of reading activities, reading comprehension strategies and classroom environment and display.

Some options are; staff and syndicate meetings, teacher-only days and in-school support.

For more information, please email sheenacameron@infogen.net.nz


Workshop descriptions

Reading Activity Workshop

The Reading Activity Workshop

 Session time: 3 or 6 hour options
Target group: Teachers of Year 1-8 students, RT Lits, RTLBs.
Workshop outline
This workshop will benefit teachers wanting to:
  • expose their students to a wide variety of text appropriate reading responses encourage independence and opportunities for choice
  • enrich and extend their literacy programme
  • save time and energy in the planning process

This practical workshop will present a range of purposeful activities that can be adapted across many levels.
Many of the activities focus on improving reading comprehension.
Handouts are included.

Reading Activity Workshop

Classroom Makeover – create an exciting and stimulating classroom environment

 Session time: 3 hours (a 6 hour session is also available which includes a practical exemplar making component)
Target group: Teachers of Year 1-8 students.
Workshop outline
This practical workshop will inspire you with a treasure chest of ideas and tips to create an exciting and stimulating classroom environment that will support your teaching and learning programme.
The workshop consists of three sessions which will focus on
  • evaluating and improving your own classroom environment
  • displaying student work
  • formats for students to publish their work
Handouts are included.

Reading Activity Workshop

Reading Strategies – what are they and how do you teach them?

 Session time: 3 or 6 hour options
Target group: Teachers of Year 1-8 students, RT Lits, RTLBs.
Workshop outline
Are you concerned about students in your class who can decode but have no understanding of what they have read? Current research indicates that we should be explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies to students. This workshop takes this research and turns it into classroom practice. It is based on Sheena’s experience of teaching strategies in a real classroom. It answers questions such as, ‘Are the strategies hierarchical? How long should I spend teaching each strategy? and ‘Do I teach them to the whole class or in groups?

The workshop will also cover
  • Current reading comprehension research
  • Where do the strategies fit in the English Curriculum/National Standards?
  • Clarification of the strategies
  • A model for how to introduce strategies
  • Student activities that support strategy teaching
  • Practical examples of recording on-going learning

Do we still have to teach reading? – developing a reading programme to engage Year 6-8 students

 Session time: 6 hours
Target group: Teachers of Year 6, 7 & 8 students, RTLB’s, RT Lits and Learning Support teachers at year 9 and 10 level.
Workshop outline
How do you run a reading programme for students who can already read? Do we still need to teach reading? How do we keep them engaged? This practical research-based workshop will provide ideas for running an effective reading programme at the upper level of primary and intermediate schools.

The workshop will include
  • What are the components of a balanced literacy programme at the upper levels of the school?
  • Setting up an effective class library
  • Guided silent reading using a variety of text resources
  • Setting up literacy circle/book clubs
  • Revisiting SSR- ideas to engage students in independent reading and encourage a reading culture
  • Ideas for good read alouds/independent reads
  • How to integrate reading comprehension strategies into your programme
  • Vocabulary learning ideas
  • Ideas for text responses including for independent book assignments focusing on different text types
  • Ideas for Incorporating ICT into your reading programme

Teacher Aides supporting Students with Reading Comprehension

Session time: 6 hours
Target group: Primary and Secondary Teacher Aides
Workshop outline
This practical workshop outlines how to support students who struggle to understand what they read through the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies. Strategy teaching encourages student independence by explicitly teaching students a toolbox of strategies they can draw on when the meaning of the text breaks down.

The workshop will be hands-on and includes many simple research-based ideas and activities that increase student engagement and understanding. A wide range of support material such as student bookmarks, starter charts and templates will be presented.

The workshop will include
  • What are the components of a good classroom environment?
  • Evaluating/setting up your own classroom environment
  • How to create a print rich environment and use it to support student learning

Creating an exciting and stimulating classroom environment

 Session time: 3 hours
Target group: Beginning teachers and teachers needing inspiration!
Workshop outline
This practical workshop will help you to create an exciting and stimulating classroom environment that will support your teaching and learning programme. Participants will create an exemplar of a publishing idea to use with their own classes.

The workshop will include
  • Current research about reading comprehension
  • An explanation of each of the strategies including activating prior knowledge, self-monitoring, predicting, visualizing and summarizing and why they support comprehension
  • Ideas for student activities that support strategy teaching and how they can be adapted across different reading levels

and lots of ideas for
  • displaying student art work
  • setting up your whiteboard
  • borders and backings
  • student formats to writing . . . and more!

REQUIREMENTS: Please bring a black pen and your own felt pens/and or coloured pencils to the course.




Facilitator profile

Sheena Cameron

Sheena Cameron is an experienced classroom teacher who has taught in New Zealand, England and the United States. She has taught at primary, intermediate and tertiary levels and was formally Director of Kohia Education Centre in Auckland. She currently facilitates workshops for Auckland and Otago Universities, co-ordinates and facilitates the Beginning Teacher programme at Kohia Education Centre.

She is the author of The Reading Activity Handbook, (2004), The Display and Publishing Handbook, (2006) and Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies, (2009).