What would I tell the staff?

1. What would I tell the staff? Literacy PD with Ken Kilpin Thursday 22/08/2013

2. Science and Physics – What’s literacy about here? • Real world problems in the test – but how do we teach and practice?? It’s a real skill to pull out the maths / physics problem; how are your text books set up? Teach skills, practise skills but skill application to the real world?? • Science and maths reading – books available; go and read it! Moves them from dependence to independence! • Make explicit your teaching of your discourse; that you are a master of, without even realising!

3. Literacy in English • Main purpose • What does it mean to be a literate English teacher? • Underlying questions • Why is this important? • How should a student be English literate? • How do we develop these students’ English literacy skills?

4. Why is this important? • Without literacy, our subject is impossible as effective reading and writing , speaking and listening, sits at the very heart of what we do. • We intend for our students to be effective purposeful readers and writers in which critical thinking is implicit • Our end game is confident, independent understandings of reading and writing at surface and deep levels and to communicate and learn through the application of relevant instructional approaches • This means reading and writing is frequently done in classes – it is the norm • In order to achieve this, texts must challenge kids • Challenge means that kids must be taught to strategically read and write

5. Implications for the English teacher • Make your implicit knowledge explicit ; think how do I read and write in English (each strategy e.g. how do I summarise) and then explain, show and scaffold the kids to do this too • Teaching strategy / beliefs • Challenge i.e. don’t make it easy; reasonable expectation of rigour • Explain, model, scaffold at each level (ZPD) • Provide opportunity and support; i.e. focus on the kids reading and writing to learn; not listening and copying • Expect the kids to do it • Some important readings… • Shanahan and Shanahan • Shanahan – writing to communicate v writing to learn

6. How should a student read and write, speak and listen in English? • Year 9 and 10: consolidating phase – comprehension strategy acquisition and refinement; so prediction, questioning, summarising, inferencing etc. • Year 11, 12, 13: critical literacy; identify/explain – analyse (part to whole) – evaluate authorial intent / using secondary critical texts – apply/theorise • Teacher questioning supports this growth of higher order thinking; be an effective interrogator of the text to push, push, push the kids to the next level i.e. how, what if, • Read; discuss; write • From Shanahan & Shanahan Narrow subject specific skills Advanced literacy demands Consolidating / extending core skills / comprehension Learning-to-read: decoding Broad base skills

7. Pedagogical Strategies for the English Teacher • Texts in advance of independent level • Purpose for reading and writing ALWAYS • Inquiry/focus questions to drill down • How are you going to record this information • What do you want me to do with it now?

8. What are the things the English teacher needs to consider • Text structure – titles, genre construction, narrative structures, nonfiction structures (sub headings, diagrams etc.) – How does the author design the text to present the information? • What do we already know? • Unfamiliar / unknown vocab? Generative strategies for learning new vocab NOT word lists; look at context; broader academic vocab to discuss what they mean. • Connectives (e.g. in addition, comparably, however,) are crucial to helping to explain at a more sophisticated level. • Provide exemplar texts • Time – its more important that time is given to student understanding than coverage of the curriculum • Multiple texts – how do they converge??

9. Pre-reading strategies: • Predicting • Skim (a really quick skim (like an ice skater) for main features / main content – a general idea of what’s in the text) and scan (a deeper scan (like the radar, Bing!) to look for graphics, key words; i.e. key features of the text) (surveying the text – but this works better for non-fiction texts rather than novels, films, short stories etc.) • Ask questions / set purpose • Evaluate if its useful and make a reading plan and / or decide if we should actually read parts of it, all of it, none of it (again, probably more useful for non fiction texts rather than novels etc.) • How are we going to organise how we are going to make notes that relate to our purpose

10. Close reading strategies • Questions • Note taking • Summarising main points • Clarify • Check predictions and make new ones • Make connections • Look for inferences • Evaluate • Analyse

11. Post reading strategies • Summarise • Question • Write understandings • Reread • Analyse, connect, evaluate • Apply

12. How to teach these strategies

13. For example: Summarising

14. Cognitive Development:How we learn stuff according to Vygotsky

15. Accelerating Cognitive DevelopmentVygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: Why challenging texts are important