Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Key Concepts

English home | Literacy Resource home | Overview | Assessment | Key Concepts | Teaching Strategies

Key concepts: VELS 1 & 2 | VELS 3 | VELS 4 | VELS 5 & 6

VELS level 3

• Victorian Essential Learning Standards - Stages of learning: Laying the foundations – includes information on the key characteristics of students as they progress through the particular stages of learning.
• Victorian Essential Learning Standards - English domain – includes introduction to the English domain, learning focus statements and standards at Level 3.
• Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding (Bruner, Rogoff, Sharpe, Vygotsky) – describes in detail the theories of scaffolding from Vygotsky, Bruner, Rogoff and Sharpe.
• Teacher scaffolding in the classroom – identifies two types of scaffolding: ‘designed in’ and ‘point of need’, their benefits and how to use them effectively.
• Speaking and listening – provides information about skills relating to speaking and listening, characteristics of listening and information about contextualised and decontextualised talk.
• Reading complex texts (Chall, Luke & Freebody, Munro, Rose) – provides an in depth discussion of how readers comprehend complex texts and describes the various theories relating to reading complex texts. It also includes a professional learning activity.
• Selecting increased variety of text types (Chall, Munro, Luke & Freebody) – deals with the process of selecting appropriate texts for Level 3, the characteristics of the texts and the factors which influence text selection. It also includes a professional learning activity.
• Comprehension of complex texts (Trehearne, Doctorow, Munro) – explores factors to be considered when comprehending complex texts, such as reader attitudes, vocabulary and world knowledge, text type, fluency and time engaged in reading. It also includes a professional learning activity.
• Fourth grade slump in Reading (Chall, Grosson de Leon, Hirsch, Kamil) – raises awareness of the trend of the decline of students literacy achievement in Grade Four and explores through research some causes.
• Writing complex texts (Munro) – examines the complex process of writing with consideration of audience and purpose and includes a professional learning activity.
• Multi-modal texts and literate language (Callow, Christie) – explains what multi-modal texts are and their importance in developing literate language. It includes a professional learning activity.
• Literacy demands within the Victorian Essential Learning Standards – highlights the literacy demands within the following domains:
• Health and Physical Education
• Interpersonal Development
• Personal Development
• Civics and Citizenship
• The Arts
• Humanities
• Mathematics
• Science
• Design, Creativity and Technology
• Information and Communications Technology ICT
• Thinking Processes