Teaching Higher Order Literacy Skills through the LNF at KS3

1. Teaching Higher Order Literacy Skills through the LNF at KS3 The Professional Literacy Company

2. Agenda • Higher Order Literacy Skills: definitions • Literacy in Action • Literacy and the LNF – challenges and solutions for secondary schools • The Literacy of Individual Subjects • Whole School Literacy: Communities of Researchers • The Literacy Rich School: Next Steps

3. Higher Order Reading Skills – What Are They? • Location • Re-organisation • Inference • Evaluation • Appreciation

4. HORS and the LNF

5. Literacy in Action

6. HOLS and the LNF • What higher order skills (oracy, reading, writing) did you use in your role as ‘Reading Detectives’? • What helped you to use them? • How are these skills represented in the LNF? • What are the implications for us as teachers?

7. Reading Detectives and the LNF

8. Reading and Writing for Real

9. Reading and Writing for Real Providing students with: • An engaging and motivating ‘hook’ • A clear purpose for reading and writing • A strong context for applying literacy skills • Authentic audiences for their writing • An unfolding narrative to retain their interest

10. Real, Realistic or Pure Fantasy? • Real • Realistic – could be real – but it isn’t! (or maybe there are elements of truth?) • Fantasy – developing the imagination – having fun!

11. Creating Reading and Writing for Real experiences Classroom based e.g. artefacts, letters, visitors, adult in role School based e.g. playground or field event Out of school e.g. visit or trip

12. Reflection activity • How could you make ‘Reading and Writing for Real’, or aspects of it, work for you in your curriculum area? • Think about what you are planning to teach: • Decide on an exciting ‘way in’. • Where possible, give your writing tasks purpose and audience • Consider the quality of your outcomes

13. Priorities for Today’s Course • Identify a range of Higher Order Literacy Skills • Show how these are represented in the LNF • Demonstrate how HOLS can be taught and practised in the context of daily lessons • Provide working models of strategies and units for delegates to take away and trial • Invite schools to evaluate and share the outcomes of their work

14. Literacy and the LNF in Secondary Schools Challenges and Solutions

15. The LNF: Some Key Messages • Focuses mainly on planning and assessment • Establishes national expectations year on year • Guide to progression in key aspects of literacy • Cross-curricular (all subjects, incl. English) • Cross-phase (5-14) • Statutory from September 2013

16. The LNF: Some Key Issues • What definition of literacy are we using? • What is the relationship between English (or Welsh) and Literacy? • At secondary level, should literacy be taught in English, then practised across the curriculum, or taught in the context of individual subjects? • How/where do we bring together the ‘whole picture’ of a student’s competence as a reader, writer, speaker, listener? • What’s the timescale?

17. Definitions of Literacy Literacy is not narrowly about the mechanics of being able to decode the words on a page or write a grammatically correct sentence, although these are essential skills in their own right. It is about the skills needed to understand written and spoken language, to interpret what has been written or said, and draw inferences from the evidence that surrounds us. It is also about being able to communicate in our turn – fluently, cogently and persuasively.

18. Extracts from LNF Handbook • The LNF focuses on the learner’s acquisition of and ability to apply the skills and concepts they have learned in order to complete realistic tasks appropriate to their stage of development. • Teachers will be able to use the LNF to integrate literacy … into their teaching whatever the subject matter

19. Extracts from LNF Handbook • Literacy is not the same as English/Welsh; as a consequence the LNF expectations do not address all aspects of the English/Welsh subject orders and need to be used in combination with other forms of assessment to develop a comprehensive picture of learner achievement. • The literacy component of the LNF will help teachers to address the literacy skills requirements of the English/Welsh programmes of study but not the more literary/creative aspects of the subject orders.

20. Some Current Challengesfor Secondary Schools • Student attainment and attitudes on arrival • The pre-eminence of 14-19 • Content and coverage within subject curriculum • Staff expertise and orientation • Constraints of existingstructures: • Subject orientation • Timetable and time allocations • Variable groupings • Multiple use of rooms • Resources

21. Some Working Solutions • Ability grouping based on attainment • Literacy Co-ordinator • Intervention Teams/Literacy Champions • Technical vocabulary displays in classrooms • Literacy Placemats; Writing Frames • Student Handbook • Whole School Marking Guidelines

22. Something More Radical? • High visibility for literacy: whole school, all areas • High priority for reading: at all levels • Redesign KS3 curriculum to strengthen focus on acquiring, using, applying, celebrating literacy skills • Use Writing for Real approaches to strengthen context, purpose and audience • Use Talk for Writing strategies to train students to become effective writers across the curriculum • Make LNF clear and intelligible to students • Monitor and mentor student progress in literacy: track and support, with particular emphasis on Y7

23. The Literacy of Individual Subjects

24. Developing Speaking and Listening Across the Curriculum

25. Using visual imagery to stimulate talk

26. Using speaking frames to developuse of language

27. The Writing Demands of GCSE

28. Strategies for Teaching Writing Across Curriculum • Identify the kinds of writing central to your subject: are students already familiar with them? • Find or create model text(s), at the upper end of what you expect your class to achieve • Imitate - make sure students get to know and understand the texts really well • Innovate – work on the texts together: same purpose, different subject matter • Invent – can they now produce versions of the model independently?

29. The Teaching Process • Read it • Talk it • Write it

30. Familiarisation • Talk about the content • Discuss the audience and purpose • Identify the author • Focus on language features (e.g. cloze) • Identify most and least effective pieces • Improve weak pieces of writing • Reconstruction

31. Explanation Text • Stage 1 – Problem to explain • Stage 2 – Research process • Stage 3 – Parallel Model Text • Stage 4 – Boxing Up; Talk the Text; Toolkit • Stage 5 – Shared Writing • Stage 6 – Students Writing • Stage 7 – Marking/Evaluation • Stage 8 – Consolidate the Learning: exemplars

32. Emma – a case study • Why is Bangladesh one of the most flood prone countries in the world?

33. Focusing on literacy • Text level • Sentence level • Word level

34. Working on introductions Marking Oral rehearsal Physical practice What makes a good one Modelling

35. Read it, Talk it, Write it and the LNF

36. Aword on assessment and marking • Students write to communicate effectively not to achieve a level • Students edit and assess their own work • Marking should reflect the focus of the teaching • Assessment should guide the next piece of teaching

37. ‘Feedback to any pupil should be about the particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparison with other pupils.’ Black & Wiliam 1998 – Inside the Black Box

38. A Community of Researchers The Unlocked Guide

41. Research process Identify research questions Set a purpose for reading Navigate non-fiction texts Interrogate the text Record and evaluate information

42. Skimming and scanning Skimming – to quickly identify the main ideas in a text Scanning – to find specific information

43. Skimming Read the title, headings and sub-headings Look at visuals Read first and last sentences of paragraphs and sections Keep thinking about the meaning of the text

44. Scanning Know what questions you are trying to answer Don’t try to read every word Read vertically rather than horizontally Visualise key words Look for clues e.g. capital letters, spelling patterns, word shapes, numbers Use signposts e.g. sub titles, headings, headers Use textual organisational devices e.g. alphabetical order

45. Interrogate the text Unknown words – to work out word meanings Stop and think – to monitor understanding Check the text – to interpret visuals Text marking – to identify key information Read, write, read – to read for meaning Ask the teacher – to formulate questions and monitor understanding Analyse the question – to answer different types of question Find the main idea – to identify key information

46. Record and evaluate information Key words Notemaking Change the form Create student quiz Next steps

47. DARTs Directed Activities Related to Texts

48. Reconstruction DARTs Text completion Sequencing Grouping Table completion Diagram completion Prediction activities

49. Analysis DARTs Text marking Text segmenting and labelling Table construction Diagram construction Questioning Summarizing

50. The teaching process • Read it • Talk it • Write it