LITERACY /
LEARNING & TEACHING

Ms Helen Butler

Literacy Learning at Holy Name

Dear Parents/Carers and Community,

Literacy learning across the school has certainly taken off this term. All year levels have been focused on establishing supportive learning environments that allow all students to flourish in literacy. In this newsletter we put a spotlight on writing!

The Victorian Writing Curriculum outlines a focus for writing related to:

Teaching the process of writing
Language Conventions
The Craft of Writing
Spelling
Punctuation
Grammar
Creation of multiple text types/Genre
Reading as writers
The use of good mentor texts.

Holy Name Year 1/2 oral story retell

At Holy Name Catholic Primary School, the reading and writing curriculum concepts, skills and behaviours are planned to complement and reinforce the relationship between these two core learning areas. However, teachers plan for the transference of this learning across the curriculum in areas like inquiry and religion for authentic purposes.

In February, the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools released the Vision for Instruction Position Statement. Within this statement, the Archdiocese outlined the evidence-based explicit instruction sequence derived from research on how students learn as well as studies of the most successful teachers. The stages of teaching (outlined below), from introduction of new content to independent practice, might all occur in one day or may occur over a week or more, depending on the content and the students. However, effective teaching will generally follow this sequence:

Explicit instruction:[1] Teachers fully explain the concepts and skills that students are required to learn. The most efficient way to teach knowledge is to teach it explicitly, and this is particularly true for the introduction of new concepts (Rosenshine 2012).

However, this does not mean students are passively receiving information.

Modelling: Effective teachers break down what students need to learn into smaller learning outcomes and model each step so that students can see what is expected of them (Rosenshine 2012).

Guided practice: Teachers provide multiple opportunities for students to practise, and support is gradually removed as students develop understanding and can work more independently.

Independent practice: Once students have developed understanding, teachers ask students to complete tasks themselves while the teacher monitors and provides feedback.

Formative assessment: Effective questioning is a core part of effective formative assessment. Instruction is most effective when it is highly interactive with frequent checks for understanding. Identifying where a student is in their learning by assessing what they know, also helps teachers choose the right starting place before introducing a new unit of work (AERO 2021)

The sequence outlined above supports Holy Name’s approach to our lesson structures in literacy. For example, in writing as outlined below:

You will note that the gradual release of support is reduced, and ownership of learning is shared between teachers and students – growing student agency for learning in the process.

If you would like some ideas of how to continue to grow your child/’s passion for writing here are some tips for supporting writing at home from years Foundation to Year 6 include:

Make writing fun:

Help your child/children write an alphabet letter, then go letter hunting in your house or in a book to find that letter.
Let your child see you writing – you can use your first language.
Encourage your child/children to write shopping lists or make birthday cards.
Play word games and do puzzles together to help your child learn more about words and spelling.
For older children, play word games and do puzzles together. Games and puzzles such as crosswords, tongue twisters and word puzzles help build your child’s knowledge of words, spelling, thinking and planning skills.

A tip for emerging writers: Do not worry if your child’s letters or words are sometimes backwards or misspelt at this age. The important thing is that they have fun writing at home and are trying.

Provide authentic opportunities:

Write to each other. Write notes to your child and leave them in interesting places, like their lunch box. Ask them to write a reply.
Help them email, text or write to family or friends.
Work with your child/children to put labels on special things – like the door to their room or their toy box.
Display their work. Put it on the fridge. Be proud of it. Share it with others.
Writing for a real purpose can help your child want to write. For example, writing invitations, typing emails or writing and posting small notes.
Personalising notes by cutting, decorating, sticking or stamping are great skills for coordinating fingers and being creative. Postcards are a good size for a sentence or two and they are cheap to post.
Encourage your child to write what they need to pack for a holiday, dictate your shopping list to them, or get them to write a list of jobs that need doing.
Talk about ideas and information they are going to write about. Talk about experiences, diagrams, graphs, pictures, photos and material that your child is planning to use in their own writing.
Discussing the information and main ideas can help their planning for writing and their understanding too.
For older students’ short stories or a journal – on paper or on a computer – can help them to write about their experiences and their own feelings about things that have happened at school, in their family, on the marae, in the world, at sports events and on T.V.

Talk about their writing: Holy Name Year 1/2 Collaborative writing.

Talk about the letters in your child’s name and where the name comes from.
Help them create a scrapbook with pictures. Encourage them to write stories under the pictures and talk to you about them.
Ask them to write about pictures they draw on paper or on the computer. Or ask your child/children to tell you the story and you write it under the picture.
Play with words. Thinking of interesting words and discussing new ones can help increase the words your child uses when they write.

Encourage writing:

Have felt pens, pencils, crayons, and paper available.
Put magnetic letters on the fridge and ask what words they can make with the letters.

Helen Butler