Literacy

Whole School Literacy

Principles

• Improving literacy standards is our moral imperative; not just as teachers, but as members of a community that strives for people to develop and thrive.
• Literacy is the responsibility of every single member of staff in our school. Students need to see how encompassing literacy is to their adult life and for that to happen, they therefore need to see how it works throughout their secondary school experience. While it may seem like a small conversation about books, it can be the start of a new stage of a student’s journey.
• All students are encouraged and supported to develop their language and literacy skills throughout the school.
• We use language for thinking, teaching and learning so it is at the heart of the school.
• Language and literacy are taught within the context of curriculum subjects.
• All teachers pay attention to literacy development in their own subject.
• Students whose English is not yet fluent or are less confident in academic literacy are entitled to receive support for their oracy and literacy skills.

Whole school language and literacy development

As students progress through secondary school, the language and literacy demands of the curriculum increase and students need to develop a wider range of language skills; in particular making the transition from spoken to written forms. They also need to be able to adopt different styles (genres) for different purposes and audiences. Some of these genres will be familiar from primary school, for example narrative writing in English or explanations in science. However, others such as critical analysis and evaluation will need to be explicitly taught within each subject.

Some students at Hummersknott Academy are not confident users of Standard English. Some may speak another language at home or in the community. Even fluent English speakers may not be fluent in the formal, written, academic language of the curriculum, which is the key to exam success.

Teachers take account of the range and complexity of reading and writing demands in their subject areas from years 7-11, so that pupils gradually develop the literacy skills required of the KS3 curriculum leading to public exams in KS4.

All staff plan how to enable students to develop appropriate oracy and literacy skills over several years. In writing schemes of work and lesson plans, teachers consider the following key points:

1. What opportunities are there to explore new content and ideas orally and collaboratively before reading and writing?
2. How can teachers model the essential subject language and literacy expectations?
3. What text types are commonly used in each subject? What written tasks are required at KS4 and how can these skills be developed throughout KS3?
4. How can teachers support learners with diverse needs during subject reading (e.g. ways to access a textbook)?
5. What specialist vocabulary do students need in order to understand new concepts and how will it be taught and reviewed in an accessible way?
6. How do subject and whole school development plans identify the role(s) of additional adults to support literacy development?

Subject teachers aim to:

• model consistent approaches to teaching and learning through their own good oral and written communication.
• be aware of the existing knowledge and understanding that pupils bring to lessons.
• use interactive speaking and listening strategies to develop subject learning.
• plan for teaching and learning of subject-specific and academic vocabulary.
• use active reading strategies to enable students to read and understand a variety of challenging texts.
• provide examples and model writing for different audiences and purpose within their subject.
• promote wider reading of fiction and non-fiction and digital texts for pleasure.

EAL Learners

It takes 1-2 years for a beginner to become fluent in everyday spoken English, but 5-7 years to develop proficiency in formal, written English. Some EAL students already have good language and literacy skills in two or more languages. Others are new to English. Most EAL students fall between these two extremes.

EAL students will be fully integrated into the mainstream curriculum. This enables them to:

• develop oral fluency quickly.
• immediately feel part of the school community.
• develop subject-specific language in context.
• experience their broad and balanced curriculum entitlement.

Some EAL learners will need adapted teaching and additional support in class.

Literacy intervention and support

Some of our students enter secondary school below age-related expectations in reading or writing or both. Some of them have specific literacy difficulties and will receive specialist support in small groups or one to one according to their identified need.

The school also provides specific intervention programmes for students whose speaking, reading or written expression is a significant barrier to curriculum access. Intervention activities include guided small-group or one-to-one reading, vocabulary development, grammar instruction and comprehension development.  

Developing language and literacy within the curriculum

Across the curriculum, we focus on three key strands of literacy development which allow our students to be confident, competent and content members of society: reading, writing and oracy. Within each strand, vocabulary is explicitly taught, not only generic, academic words that are required across the curriculum but also subject-specific terminology needed to unlock subject content.

A – Learning through talk

1. Clarifying the ground rules of talk (turn taking, eye contact etc…)
2. Using speaking to debate and present ideas
3. Using active listening to understand a topic and respond to others
4. Hypothesising, speculating, evaluating and problem-solving through discussion

Teaching strategies

• Use sentence stems to model respectful response and challenge
• Provide pre- and post-listening activities such as listening frames
• Plan collaborative group learning activities
• Assign and train students in group roles (chair, summariser, clarifier etc…)
• Ask students to rehearse answers with talk partner(s) before answering
• Use TAs to support discussion groups

B – Learning from reading

1. Promote wider reading for pleasure and extend cultural capital
2. Explicitly teach comprehension skills – inference and deduction
3. Model active reading for information and knowledge
4. Develop independent research and study skills

Teaching strategies

• Make the purpose of reading explicit
• Read aloud to students and question them about texts
• Use reciprrocal reading techniques
• Teach students how to find their way around textbooks and use the index, glossary etc…
• Help students decide whether to scan, skim or close read
• Ask students to transfer information from text to diagrams and back
• Encourage and show students how to use the library for pleasure

C – Learning through writing

1. Use writing to think, explore and develop ideas
2. Plan and organise writing to link ideas into paragraphs and essays
3. Develop clear and appropriate formal expression

Teaching strategies

• Show students how to evaluate, improve, and redraft their writing
• Make sure students are clear about the purpose and audience for their writing
• Point out the differences between informal speech and formal, academic writing
• Help students choose and use the appropriate level of formality
• Annotate and model sample texts as preparation for writing
• Show students how to organise their writing
• Support extended writing with sentence prompts and discourse markers to link ideas