It’s readilearn’s fourth birthday

On Monday 24 August, readilearn will be four years old, and what an amazing four years it has been — one day, one week, one month, one year at a time. We haven’t been without our hiccups, but we haven’t been without our successes either. I express my sincere gratitude to everyone of you who has supported me along the way. Rest assured, the journey is not over yet.

About Norah, founder of readilearn

For those who don’t know, below are #12 things about me that preceded and contributed to the establishment of readilearn, a collection of teaching resources to support teachers of the first three years of school.

1. Education is my life, my passion, especially literacy development and the education of young children.
2. I decided at age 10 that I wanted to be a teacher. That desire has never waned.
3. When I left school, I went straight into teachers’ college, and from there back into the classroom, but on the other side of the teacher’s desk.
4. I wasn’t always happy with everything that was expected of me as a classroom teacher and read widely about education and alternatives to schooling.
5. I undertook further study into language and literacy development.
6. I worked for some years as what was then called a remedial/resource teacher, supporting children with literacy learning needs and teachers with their literacy programs.
7. I spent a number of years attempting to establish an alternative school and was thwarted only by town planning issues and a decision by someone in power with a conflict of interest who should never have had the say.
8. I educated my daughter at home until she was nine years of age.
9. I taught for over 20 years in the classroom, mostly in year one (my favourite) but all in lower primary.
10. I constantly wrote lessons and teaching materials to support children’s learning.
11. I have been employed by a variety of educational publishers to write teacher and student materials and still write freelance for some.
12. Alongside my passion for education, is a passion for reading and writing. While much of the reading and writing I do, and have done, is related to education, I also have a great love of reading and writing fiction. While some of my stories are included in the readilearn collection, embedded in teaching resources, I look forward to being the author of a (at least one) traditionally published picture book one day.

I loved my years working with children and miss them dearly. If I can tell you one thing about teaching, it is this:

The most important thing in the classroom is the children.

Everything we do must revolve around them, their interests and their needs.

I also loved creating resources to make my lessons more interesting and inspire the children’s learning. But I spent hours upon hours doing so. My wish to provide other teachers with quality resources that support their teaching, saving them some of their own precious time, was my motivation for creating readilearn.

A birthday gift for you

It’s readilearn’s birthday but we are giving you a gift.

We have collected 8 of the birthday-themed printable resources into one easy-to-download Birthday Bundle. Purchased individually, these resources would cost $8.50, but you can download them free until 24 September.

These resources include:

Birthday word cards

Birthday word search

Happy birthday badges

A birthday card to personalise

Busy Bee Birthday chart

Party hat template

Little Koala’s Invitation Notepaper (colour)

9 square birthday puzzle

But wait, there’s more!

We have also uploaded a new free jigsaw puzzle Little Koala’s Party.

The jigsaw supports the interactive problem-solving story Little Koala’s Party. While not specifically a birthday party, it could be.

Happy Birthday — an interactive resource to personalise

In addition, you may ‘purchase’ the interactive birthday card to personalise free for the birthday month until 24 September (usually $2).

We hope you enjoy these birthday gifts.

We always love hearing about the resources you find most useful, and we are interested to know what types of resources you would like added to the collection. Please contact us with any feedback or requests.

Thank you for your ongoing support. It is greatly appreciated.

Remember to check out the complete readilearn collection of

over 430 teaching resources for the first three years of school

Resources beyond worksheets – lessons for teachers made by teachers.

Let readilearn lighten your workload.

Browse resources now

If you haven’t already, follow @readilearn on Twitter and readilearnteachingresources on Instagram and like the readilearnteachingresources Facebook page.

I appreciate your feedback and comments. Please share your thoughts below.