Essential Language Skills for Year 8 and Year 9: NAPLAN Teacher Edition

Essential Language Skills has three major sections and includes all the teachers’ answers to the NAPLAN designed questions.

• Parts of Speech
  The workbook begins with Parts of Speech — the fundamental words which form the building blocks of sentence structure. A definition of the function of each part of speech is followed by examples and practice exercises. Included are Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Antonyms and Synonyms. It also provides essential practice in how parts of speech clarify meaning by their placement in a sentence.
• Phrases and Clauses
  Meaning can be enriched and sentence length varied by using conjunctions, prepositions or relative pronouns to link phrases and clauses to the main clause. ‘Essential Language Skills’ provides extensive hands-on practice in understanding phrases and clauses and how they can increase fluency in writing.
• Punctuation
  Punctuation is the writer’s instructions on how a text should be read. Incorrectly punctuated sentences do not make sense. ‘Essential Language Skills’ deals with the major rules for punctuation in the English language, with many supporting practice exercises.

The NAPLAN tests are administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and are designed to standardize learning in all Australian schools. The aim is to measure how students perform against all other students of their age group against national standards.

Each individual student’s performance is delivered to the school as hard copy, but the overall performance of the school is measured against that of other schools, and the results widely published for all to see. This means that the perception people have of schools is coloured by how well their students perform.

Taking this into account, it is obvious that it is vitally important that students have a sound understanding of language if they are to hold their own in these stringent tests.

Also available:

NAPLAN Preparation and Testing Power Points

Every teacher encounters the problem of students not bringing the correct textbook to class. These Power Points provide the teacher with an instant NAPLAN revision sheet. The students can all practice for the test in the classroom, then the teacher can provide the answers immediately using the neatly designed animations. They can also be used without the workbook as a purely oral exercise. the answers appear with the click of the mouse. Just select ‘play’. the answers appear with the click of the mouse.