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

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!

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?

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

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

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 Advanced literacy demands Consolidating / extending core skills / comprehension Learning-to-read: decoding Narrow subject specific skills Broad base skills

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?

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??

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

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

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

How to teach these strategies Scaffolded practice -Kids practice, practice, practice. Teachers support through further explanation, modelling, activities to independence Teacher modelling - Thinking aloud Explicit explanation -what, why, how, when

For example: Summarising Teacher explanation What is it? Taking the main point out of what you read. Why you do it? Helps to make sure you’ve understood what you’re reading Teacher modelling Teacher reads aloud, stopping to think aloud and commentate on their reading process. Student practice (pedagogical strategies) - Post it summaries - 10 word summaries - Graphic organisers - who, what, where, when, why, how questions -TIME TO THINK

Cognitive Development: How we learn stuff according to Vygotsky Interpersonal plane Talk, explanation, modelling Practice, practice, practice Trial and error Talking yourself through it Intrapersonal plane Automatic and quiet

Accelerating Cognitive Development Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: Why challenging texts are important Independent / easy to do by myself The Zone of Proximal Development – what I can do with expert / adult scaffolding Way too hard; beyond my grasp at the moment. But will be my next steps for learning once I master the skill in the ZPD