Shows
The Adventures After Teaching Podcast“I Feel Completely Different”: Exploring Diagonal Steps in Teacher Career Change“I can’t be in this position next year.”Primary teacher Vicky loved so many things about teaching but, after 20 years in the classroom, she found that the scope of her role had increased so much from when she first started her career. Regularly working until 9pm just to feel prepared for the next day, she felt like she was missing out on being present with her own family and knew that it was time for a change. Now a Regional Trainer with Literacy company Lexonik, and also one of the Adventures After Teaching Academy’s Associa...2025-03-1839 min
Vocabulary DetectivesAdventures over the Atlantic: Bringing Lexonik to the U.S.This week the Vocabulary Detectives are solving the mystery of American education. Sarah Ledger is joined by a fresh off the plane Lisa Parkinson, to talk about Lisa’s experience in the sunshine state of Florida, providing Lexonik training to American educators.
They discuss the differences with American English, the structure of the U.S. education system and how Lexonik’s universal principles of teaching can cross oceans to improve literacy!
Presented by Sarah Ledger CEO and Lisa Parkinson, Director at Lexonik.
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UK customers: www.lexonik.co.uk
U...2023-01-1920 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode: Intervention choicesBefore committing to any new school initiative, it’s important to demonstrate due diligence and research your prospective purchase. This is of course especially important for school leaders when we consider the current financial constraints on UK schools.
Sarah and Lisa discuss how to evaluate the impact of interventions, factors to consider in delivering those interventions and how to use data on progress to ensure that your school is getting the most bang for your buck!
Presented by Sarah Ledger CEO and Lisa Parkinson, Director at Lexonik.
www.lexonik.co.uk2022-11-2323 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode - The National Literacy Trust Independent Evaluation of Lexonik Advance - the results are in!Our latest Vocabulary Detectives podcast episode centres on the news that the National Literacy Trust has completed its 12 month assessment of our Lexonik Advance intervention.
Sarah and Lisa discuss the outstanding conclusions of the NLT impact evaluation, and delve into the issue of why an educational provider might seek to get its product or service externally assessed.
Not only was the NLT able to conclude that Lexonik Advance had had significant impact on students – in terms of reading age gains and literacy confidence – but, significantly, that there was positive and marked impact on the teachers bein...2022-11-1031 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode - Assessed, Identified. Now What?The Vocabulary Detectives are back with a brand-new episode all about how educators can best use their assessment data.
“Assessed, Identified, Now What?” investigates what to consider when assessing learners, what to look for in your assessments and how all of this leads to putting your student data to good use.
Presenters: Sarah Ledger and Lisa Parkinson from Lexonik2022-10-1734 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode - Reading FluencyIn this episode the Vocabulary Detectives explore reading fluency and give their thoughts on how and whether it can be taught.
They cover the building blocks of reading fluency and how essential skills such as automaticity and syllabification are needed to achieve fluency.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik
www.lexonik.co.uk2022-09-2230 min
Vocabulary DetectivesInvestigating the word stem ‘pend’In this episode the Vocabulary Detectives are joined by Katy Parkinson, Founder of Lexonik and explore the stem ‘pend’. Katy also talks about her motivation behind founding the company.
Presented by: Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell and guest Katy Parkinson from Lexonik
www.lexonik.co.uk2022-06-1719 minVocabulary DetectivesContranymsIn this episode the Vocabulary Detectives explore contranyms and why there is always a bra in the library!
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik
www.lexonik.co.uk2022-05-0924 min
The ALT:learn PodcastEp 13 - Tools to increase the vocabulary development of your students, with Sarah Ledger CEO of LexonikIn this episode we discuss simple ways to promote vocabulary development and the importance of this not just for examination success, but for lifelong learning.
2022-04-2937 minVocabulary DetectivesTeaching and Learning VocabularyIn this episode Lisa and Sarah explore how to teach and learn vocabulary, giving a focused classroom method any teacher could use in any classroom.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger and Lisa Parkinson from Lexonik
lexonik.co.uk2022-03-2924 minVocabulary DetectivesPandemic vocabularyCovid and the pandemic has changed all of our lives forever, including our vocabulary. Join Sarah, Lisa and Anne in an exploration of the vocabulary of the pandemic.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2022-01-2820 minVocabulary DetectivesConfusing VocabularyLanguage isn’t easy! Join Lisa and Anne as they explore annoyingly tricky words and confusing affixes. See how they manage in this episode without Sarah.
Presented by: Lisa Parkinson & Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-11-1423 minVocabulary DetectivesWeather VocabularyFrom JK Rowling to Shakespeare, us Brits love talking about the weather. The detectives explore the words of weather, adding some of their favourites along the way.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-10-1128 minVocabulary DetectivesUsing morphology to get you unstuckThe detectives Anne and Lisa take us back through morphemic analysis and explore how to get unstuck with tricky words. The stem spect and dict are investigated.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik.2021-10-0129 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode - Reading at HomeAnne and Sarah chat about their experiences as mothers of reading at home and give top tips for making reading and vocabulary developments with our children as easy as possible.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger and Anne Wassell from Lexonik
www.lexonik.co.uk2021-09-1337 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode - an interview with Philip MorleyIn this special episode our resident Vocabulary Detective Sarah chats with Philip Morley, classic master craftsman, contributing author at Fine Wood Workings Magazine and teacher at Austin School of Furniture, along with Katy Parkinson, Founder Director of Lexonik, about his experience of Dyslexia growing up and the impact on his personal and professional life in adulthood.
Presented by Sarah Ledger from Lexonik2021-08-2736 minVocabulary DetectivesVocabulary in the workplaceThe Vocabulary Detectives explore the importance of continuing vocabulary exploration into adult life and how it literally could be a matter of life or death.
By Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-07-3024 minVocabulary DetectivesThe Language of ScienceLisa explores with her fellow detectives the vocabulary of science and technology, with 90% having roots in Greek or Latin.
by Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-07-3045 minVocabulary DetectivesThe Power of The PrefixAnne begins this episode exploring the power of the prefix, focusing words with multiple prefixes and the analysis of antidisestablishmentarianism?
By Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-07-0628 minVocabulary DetectivesThe vocabulary of mathsThe vocabulary detectives discuss why explicit vocabulary instruction is essential in any subject area.
By Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-07-0625 min
The School Should Be PodcastHow can literacy be taught in schools in a post-pandemic world?Sarah Ledger, Director at Lexonik, talks to me about how we can teach literacy skills and education in schools and how we can make literacy about more than just spelling, punctuation and grammar. An award-winning company that works with schools, students, teachers and homeschoolers, Lexonik provides unique resources and transformational programmes to ensure every single individual can access literacy education. Their programmes help students in the UK and beyond to raise attainment and learn the skills they need to reach their potential, all through a confident approach to literacy.
Sarah speaks to me about the rise in d...2021-06-291h 05Vocabulary DetectivesInvestigating cognates and the word stem ‘man’Lisa investigates the importance of cognates when developing vocabulary via the word stem ‘man’. Anne unpicks the difference between words, syllables and affixes whilst Sarah remembers her GCSE French!
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik
2021-05-1421 minVocabulary DetectivesSpecial Episode - Adult literacy and prison education with David BreakspearDavid Breakspear, prison reform campaigner, speaks with Sarah and Phil about his reading and literacy journey, prison education and why we’re still in an adult literacy crisis. He’s also put through his morphemic analysis paces.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger
Guests: David Breakspear and Phil Luke2021-05-1136 minVocabulary DetectivesInvestigating the word stem ’duc’Anne takes the detectives on an exploration of the word stem ‘duc’ in this episode, leading to a very competitive word web challenge.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-05-0421 minVocabulary DetectivesInvestigating the prefix ‘com’This week's guest detective, Anne Wassell explores the prefix com, with our resident detectives, plus gives handy tips on how to easily improve vocabulary at home. There’s a cheeky game of Mallet’s Mallet in there too.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger, Lisa Parkinson and Anne Wassell from Lexonik2021-05-0426 minVocabulary DetectivesInvestigating the word stem ‘press’The word stem ‘press’ is investigated in this episode of Vocabulary Detectives as well as a quick fire review of ‘trac’ and ‘greg’ from the previous episodes. Lisa and Sarah also explore how to make vocabulary instruction and learning habitual as well as a good game of odd one out to finish.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger and Lisa Parkinson from Lexonik2021-04-2823 minVocabulary DetectivesInvestigating the word stem ‘trac’ and how to use context clues when readingIn this episode the resident Vocabulary Detectives Sarah and Lisa investigate the word stem ‘trac’ as well as exploring how context clues can help with reading and vocabulary developments.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger and Lisa Parkinson from Lexonik2021-04-2623 minVocabulary DetectivesInvestigating morphology and the word stem ‘greg’What is morphology? Why is it important and how does knowing what the word stem ‘greg’ means open up a world of vocabulary? In this episode Sarah and Lisa investigate these questions and more, concluding in a tricky game of nonsense words.
Presented by: Sarah Ledger and Lisa Parkinson from Lexonik
2021-04-2518 min