1. The Literacy Programme at Bradbury School
“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 
- Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"

2. Beliefs and Values in Literacy
Literacy is fundamental to learning, thinking and communication, and permeates the whole curriculum
Literacy is the major connecting element across the curriculum
Applied across subject areas
Applied throughout the transdisciplinary programme of inquiry

3. Good Learning Practice
Literature is an integral part of the curriculum
Books are read to be
Enjoyed
Discussed
Analysed
Compared
Contrasted
Students learn how to
understand, interpret and respond to ideas, attitudes and feelings
think critically
make predictions and inferences

4. Good Learning Practice
Writing is a significant activity in classes of all ages
When learning to write, students are encouraged to
focus on meaning rather than accuracy
enjoy the writing process

5. The Role of Literacy in the POI
Literacy is taught through the relevant, realistic context of the units of inquiry
Literacy instruction supports students’ inquiries and the sharing of their learning

6. How Literacy Practices are Changing
Increased emphasis on:
Decreased emphasis on:
Promoting integrated language development
Teaching language as isolated strands
A literature-based approach to learning language
Using skill-drill texts and workbooks to learn language
A teaching approach that sees making mistakes in language as inevitable and necessary for learning
A teaching approach that focuses on encouraging students not to make mistakes in language
Reading for meaning
Decoding only for accuracy
Reading selected according to interest level
Reading selected according to decoding level
Making culturally diverse reading material available
Having only monocultural reading materials available

7. How Literacy Practices are Changing
Increased emphasis on:
Decreased emphasis on:
Focusing on meaning when reading and writing
Focusing primarily on accuracy when reading and writing
Encouraging appropriate cooperative discussion in the classroom
Enforcing silent, individual work in the classroom
Writing as a process
Writing only as a product
Developing a range of independent spelling strategies
A dependence on the teacher as the only source of correct spelling
Using language for creative problem solving and information processing
Using language for rote learning
A range of appropriate assessment methods such as conferencing, miscue analysis, and writing sample analysis
Standardized reading and writing assessments

8. Knowledge and Skills in Language
The learning process involves
Learning Language
As students listen to and use language with others in their everyday lives
Learning About Language
As students try to understand how language works
Learning Through Language
As students use language as a tool to think about, or reflect on a theme, concept or issue

9. LITERACY STRANDS Listening and Speaking Reading Writing
Viewing and Presenting

10. LITERACY STRAND Listening and Speaking
Students learn to:
Listen and respond to a range of texts, and to the ideas and opinions of others
Improve fluency and accuracy when speaking
Ask and answer questions; relate and retell; persuade; talk about needs, feelings, ideas or opinions; contribute to discussions
Recognize that oral language needs to be appropriate to the audience and to the purpose

11. LITERACY STRAND Reading and Writing
Students learn to:
Read and write for enjoyment, instruction and information
Recognize and appreciate the variety of literary styles, genres and structures; poetry, plays and stories; creative, informative, instructional, persuasive and reflective text
Understand and apply a variety of structures, strategies and literary techniques
Spelling, grammar, prediction, plot, character, punctuation, voice

12. LITERACY STRAND Viewing and Presenting
Viewing is receptive Presenting is expressive
Students learn to:
Appreciate that the world is full of visual language that conveys meaning
Understand how images and language interact to convey meaning
Interpret and respond to text
Use texts for different purposes
Use visual texts to enrich their own storytelling or presentations

13. Literacy at Bradbury School
Literacy in Action

14. Literacy Year 1
Speaking & Listening
Reading
Writing

15. Oral language Speaking and Listening
Oral language encompasses all aspects of Speaking and Listening. These are skills that are essential for ongoing language development. Some examples in the classroom are:
Role play
Drama
Circle time
Listening activities
Following instructions
Communication using different languages

16. READING
Can you read this?

17. Reading Development Learning to read is a very complex process
All children are different and their reading development varies

18. Phonics
We use a variety of phonic programmes to reinforce single phonemes and blends
This is done using repetition, through a variety of matching, rhyming, listening and treasure hunt games etc.

19. In the classroom… Shared Reading Guided Reading Independent Reading
Whole class participation
Big books or Interactive Whiteboard
Modelled reading
Guided Reading
Small groups
High frequency words and unit-related vocabulary
Teaching reading strategies
Decoding and comprehension
Independent Reading
Quiet reading
Buddy reading

20. A Variety Of Texts
Students read and re-read a range of texts eg, non-fiction, poems, songs, big books, fairy tales, picture books
Children are encouraged to respond to texts in a variety of ways eg. drawing, painting, retelling, role play and writing

21. Contextual Understanding
Students use language experience to talk about texts
Has anything that happens in the story ever happened to you?
Is the family in the book like yours?
Share opinions
Is this book true? Could this really happen?
Look at the ways people or
characters are represented.

22. Nurturing A Community Of Readers
Create a supportive classroom where everyone is valued for their efforts
Foster an enjoyment of reading through discussion and sharing
Encourage students to take risks
Encourage students to select their own reading materials according to interest or purpose

23. How To Support Early Readers
Read with your child every day – home readers
Practice sounds and/or high frequency words as they come home
Expose your child to a wide variety of texts
Encourage children to use decoding skills to attempt independent reading
Encourage your child to talk about books and their reading with other members of the family

24. Writing is fun!
Every child is a writer. We need to foster an atmosphere where any mark making is valued as writing.

25. Role Play Writing
Children will experiment with marks to represent written language
Children are beginning to understand that writing is used to convey meaning or messages
As their understanding about sound-symbol relationships has not yet developed their writing is not readable
It is important to know what they have written by asking them to read their writing to you

26. Example of Role Play writing

27. Emergent Writing Phase
Children are aware that speech can be written down.
They rely on familiar topics to write about such as greeting cards, lists and letters.
Children will demonstrate one-to-one correspondence by representing most spoken words in their written text.

28. Example of Emergent Writing Phase

29. Early Writing Phase
Children will produce a small range of texts that exhibit some of the conventions of writing eg, retells, reports and weekend news
At this stage your child will have a small bank of high frequency words that they spell correctly eg, and, they, come, have
When writing unknown words they rely on phonic knowledge

30. Example of Early Writing Phase

31. What does this look like at school?
Encourage the children to sound out unfamiliar vocabulary
Opportunities to write daily
Teacher modelled writing / Guided writing
Value their writing. Children must see themselves as writers. As teachers our main concern is that we create an atmosphere where children enjoy writing and know they are successful.

32. Handwriting
Begins with patterns for hand movements to introduce pre-cursive writing:

33. Introduce individual letters through modelling:

34. Explicitly taught letter joins:

35. Commonly asked questions:
Why do you teach children cursive at such an early age?
Will my child have to write using cursive all the time?
Will this slow my child’s writing process?

37. How can you help at home? Shopping lists Diary/journal
Draw a picture, ask them to write about it
Postcards to friends
Note to Mummy or Daddy to take to work for them to read in the day
Labels around the house
Writing birthday cards
Correct pencil grip
Always value what they have written, even if you can’t read it!

38. Have Fun
Remember to enjoy the experience of reading and writing in these first few years of school
The partnership between home and school is extremely important